Collisionless electron heating in a surface-wave discharge

摘要

A surface-wave (SW) plasma is generated by absorption of the microwave energy from a wave propagating between a plasma with overcritical density and a dielectric surface. SW discharge plasmas have been thoroughly described and studied both experimentally and theoretically or numerically, but some aspects of the mechanisms of electron energy absorption at low pressure are still not fully understood or at least not satisfactorily predicted or described by the models.