Full-Wave Electromagnetic Modeling of Microwave Systems with Plasma

Microwave plasma has found increasing use in new technologies and applications such as diamond synthesis, CO₂ decomposition, hydrogen production, and other innovations. The complexity of the interconnected physical processes in microwave plasma systems makes the experimental development of practical devices a significant challenge, and motivates the use of computer models to clarify the system's behavior and operating principles. Traditional multiphysics modeling aiming to integrate electromagnetism, plasma dynamics, thermodynamics, chemical reactions, equilibrium, etc., is computationally expensive, and often leads to results that are difficult to interpret and use in practice. However, when designing microwave plasma systems, understanding the EM processes (primary to all the phenomena involved) can be invaluable.

In this talk, I will present our ongoing effort on adapting the Finite-Difference Time-Domain technique for informative and computationally inexpensive EM modeling of microwave devices containing plasma. The work is focused on a simplified description of plasma and its links with operational parameters of the system (microwave power, type of gas, and pressure). I will describe experimental verification of this type of modeling, discuss the intrinsic uncertainty in the input data on the plasma medium, outline an approach to overcoming the fundamental limitation of power levels in large industrial installations, and show that the technique is ready for use in machine-learning optimization.

Vadim V. Yakovlev

Industrial Microwave Modeling Group

Center for Industrial Mathematics and Statistics

Department of Mathematical Sciences

Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Worcester, MA, USA