Direct simulation of plasma-dust particle interactions with application to transport of dust particles in plasma processing discharges

Summary form only given. To investigate the forces on dust particles, a pseudoparticle-in-cell simulation has been developed. The results of the model provide the dust particle potential and shielding characteristics. Ion-dust particle and electron-dust particle momentum transfer cross sections are obtained by performing a molecular dynamics simulations. The transport of the dust particles in reactive ion etching (RIE) and inductively coupled plasma (ICP) reactors has been investigated using the ion-dust momentum transfer cross sections and ion fluxes obtained from a 2-dimensional plasma simulation. When the shielding length is commensurate with the size of the particle, the potential of the dust particle becomes more negative with increasing size (0.5-10 /spl mu/m). When particles are close to each other, their shielding volumes overlap, resulting in less momentum transfer between ions and dust particles.