Multidimensional Kinetic-Fluid Simulation of Inductive Discharges

Inductive discharges for plasma processing (in particular for reactive ion etching) are preferably operated in a low-pressure regime in which collisionless heating of electrons is probably dominant. It is therefore desirable that efficient computer simulation techniques should be developed that are accurate under these conditions, where the ordinary fluid equations on which most current models are based are not valid. This paper discusses an approach based on "kinetic-fluid" equations: Fluid equations in which the closure assumptions are altered to enhance accuracy in the relevant regime. We show that this approach permits efficient three dimensional simulations, and that subtle features of the electron dynamics observed in recent experiments are reproduced by such simulations.