eduPIC: an introductory particle based code for radio-frequency plasma simulation

Abstract

For the self-consistent description of various plasma sources operated in the low-pressure (nonlocal, kinetic) regime, the Particle-In-Cell simulation approach, combined with the Monte Carlo treatment of collision processes (PIC/MCC), has become an important tool during the past decades. PIC/MCC simulation codes have been developed and maintained by many research groups, some of these codes are available to the community as freeware resources. While this computational approach has already been present for a number of decades, the rapid evolution of the computing infrastructure makes it increasingly more popular and accessible, as simulations of simple systems can be executed now on personal computers or laptops. During the past few years we have experienced an increasing interest in lectures and courses dealing with the basics of particle simulations, including the PIC/MCC technique. In a response to this, this paper (i) provides a tutorial on the physical basis and the algorithms of the PIC/MCC technique and (ii) presents a basic (spatially one-dimensional) electrostatic PIC/MCC simulation code for Capacitively Coupled Plasmas, whose source is made freely available in various programming languages. We share the code in C/C++ versions, as well as in a version written in Rust, which is a rapidly emerging computational language. Our code intends to be a "starting tool" for those who are interested in learning the details of the PIC/MCC technique and would like to develop the "skeleton" code further, for their research purposes.

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