Title:	Cathodic Arc Plasma Modeling for Hard Coating Industrial Applications
DNr:	NAISS 2024/22-839
Project Type:	NAISS Small Compute
Principal Investigator:	Nikolaos Giochalas <nikgi94@liu.se>
Affiliation:	Linköpings universitet
Duration:	2024-07-01 – 2025-07-01
Classification:	20506
Keywords:

Abstract

We are aiming to understand and control industrial plasma deposition systems producing hard coatings. Knowledge of important plasma quantities, such as ion fluxes, EEDF, plasma density gradients, is essential for the best utilization and improvement of PVD systems. In this work, the Plasma Module, which is part of the COMSOL Multiphysics suite is used as the software for plasma simulations, as this module is tailored especially for low-temperature, nonequilibrium plasmas, such as Cathodic Arc Plasma. COMSOL utilizes a Finite Element Method (FEM) fluid approach to solve for the plasma variables in the system. With the fluid approach, the transport of the modelled species, which here are electrons, ions, and neutrals, is modelled by employing diffusion equations coupled with Poisson's equation to account for changes in charge density.