Viscous effects on motion and heating of electrons in inductively coupled plasma reactors

A transport model is developed for nonlocal effects on motion and heating o f electrons in inductively coupled plasma reactors. The model is based on t he electron momentum equation derived from the Boltzmann equation, retainin g anisotropic stress components which in fact are viscous stresses. The res ulting model consists of transport equations for the magnitude of electron velocity oscillation and terms representing energy dissipation due to visco us stresses in the electron energy equation. In this model, electrical curr ent is obtained in a nonlocal manner due to viscous effects, instead of Ohm 's law or the electron momentum equation without viscous effects, while non local heating of electrons is represented by the viscous dissipation. Compu tational results obtained by two-dimensional numerical simulations show tha t nonlocal determination of electrical current indeed is important, and vis cous dissipation becomes an important electron heating mechanism at low pre ssures, It is suspected that viscous dissipation in inductively coupled pla sma reactors in fact represents stochastic heating of electrons, and this p ossibility is exploited by discussing physical similarities between stochas tic heating and energy dissipation due to the stress tensor.