PFI-TT: Developing an Efficient Computation Scheme for Modeling Low-Pressure Plasmas

该创新-技术转化伙伴关系（PFI-TT）项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是使用创新计算方案显著减少低压等离子体建模时间。 低压等离子体广泛用于半导体集成电路、显示器、太阳能电池板、薄膜电池和涂层的制造。这些行业的年市场超过6000亿美元。计算机模拟是理解等离子体复杂特性和开发高效等离子体处理技术的重要手段。不幸的是，目前的商业等离子体模拟软件需要巨大的计算资源;它需要几个月的时间来模拟实际规模的等离子体。由于缺乏一种用于模拟低压等离子体的实用工具，导致了设计不当的源，导致了今天使用的效率低下的过程。这个PFI-TT项目旨在开发新的计算方案，以有效地模拟低压下的某些等离子体。这些工具将允许用户模拟实际规模的等离子体，甚至使用在24小时内产生反馈的台式计算机。该项目还将培训和扩大研究生和本科生的参与，使他们成为未来技术创新和创业的领导者。 该项目结合了一个隐式算法的带电粒子的运动与能量守恒计划，以消除空间和时间的限制，在国家的最先进的显式粒子在细胞/蒙特卡罗碰撞算法。隐式算法的主要优点是等离子体的高频振荡在时域中被阻尼。能量守恒方案确保了等离子体的总能量守恒，并且消除了由于大网格间距（即，显著大于等离子体德拜长度）而引起的自加热。新的计算方案是超过30倍的速度比最先进的显式粒子在细胞/蒙特卡罗碰撞算法。开发的建模工具也有可能解决的情况下，一个完整的动力学分析，但由于高等离子体密度，如高功率脉冲磁控溅射和磁化discharge中的等离子体不稳定性尚未提供。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得的支持，通过评估使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Partnerships for Innovation - Technology Translation (PFI-TT) project is the significant reduction of low-pressure-plasma modeling time using innovative computation schemes. Low-pressure plasmas are widely used for the manufacturing of semiconductor integrated circuits, displays, solar panels, thin film batteries, and coatings. The annual market of these industry segments exceeds $600 billion. Computer simulation is an essential approach to understanding the complex plasma characteristics and developing efficient plasma processing technologies. Unfortunately, current commercial plasma simulation software requires huge computational resources; it takes months to model the plasmas in practical scales. The lack of a practical tool for modeling low-pressure plasmas has resulted in improperly designed sources, leading to the inefficient processes used today. This PFI-TT project aims to develop new computation schemes for efficiently modeling certain plasmas at low pressures. These tools will allow the users to simulate plasmas of practical scales, using even desktop computers that generate feedback in 24 hours. This project will also train and broaden the participation of graduate and undergraduate students, and prepare them as future leaders in technology innovation and entrepreneurship. The proposed project combines an implicit algorithm of the motions of charged particles with an energy conservation scheme to eliminate the spatial and temporal constraints in the state-of-the-art explicit particle-in-cell/Monte Carlo collision algorithms. The key advantage of the implicit algorithm is that the high frequency oscillations of plasmas are damped in the time domain. The energy conservation scheme ensures that the total energy of the plasma is conserved and the self-heating due to a large grid spacing (i.e. significantly greater than the plasma Debye length) is eliminated. The new computation scheme is over 30 times faster than the state-of-the-art explicit particle-in-cell/Monte Carlo collision algorithms. The developed modeling tools also have the potential to address situations where a complete kinetic analysis is not yet available due to the high plasma density, such as high-power impulse magnetron sputtering and the plasma instabilities in magnetized discharges.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.