Simulations of a CCP-based sputtering source with a PIC/MCC Darwin code

A novel concept of a sputtering source based on a CCP multi-frequency discharge is studied using a self-consistent kinetic PIC/MCC Darwin code. The cylindrically symmetric 2d3v code allows to follow all the kinetic and all the important electro-magnetic effects taking place in such plasmas. To speedup the calculations, the code is parallelized on a GPU. Our simulations show that the electromagnetic effects can be significantly different from the predictions of simplified analytical models (see, e.g., [1]). To validate the code, we compare the major plasma parameters obtained from numerical simulations of a set of different cases with those provided by the experiment [2]. We give special attention to the plasma properties which are particularly relevant to the use of the discharge as a sputtering source.