Power deposited onto a dielectric surface by multipactor in two regimes

Summary form only given. Modeling multipactor discharges is important for understanding window breakdown and parasitic plasma discharges in high power microwave tubes before valuable experimental equipment is damaged or lost. In an effort to accomplish this, fully self-consistent 1D and 2D simulations were run using the ICEPIC (improved concurrent electromagnetic particle-in-cell) code to study these phenomena. The Vaughn model for secondary electron emission has been incorporated into ICEPIC for these studies. Our results are compared to 1D theory, which takes into account the space charge in the vacuum which oscillates at twice the imposed RF frequencies. Our simulations focus on two parameter regimes: 2.45 GHz and 110 GHz. The focus of this theoretical and computational study is calculating the amount of power absorbed by the dielectric surface due to the multipactoring electrons impacting the surface. When these electrons strike the dielectric surface, they cause surface heating to occur, leading to outgassing from the surface. These gas atoms then undergo ionization, which neutralizes the multipactor discharge. This allows the electron density to increase, increasing the amount of reflected power within the system, thereby decreasing the overall output power