A COMPARISON OF EXPERIMENTAL AND THEORETICAL ELECTRON-ENERGY DISTRIBUTION-FUNCTIONS IN A MULTICUSP ION-SOURCE

Experimental and theoretical electron energy distribution functions (EEDFS) measured in and calculated for the driver of a multicusp ion source operating in hydrogen are compared. The results show that atomic physics based theoretical models can accurately predict the EEDF in such discharges if some appropriate experimentally determined quantities are used as input parameters. The magnitude and shape of the EEDF is found to be particularly sensitive to the effective surface area to volume ratio for electrons.