高功率微波输出窗内侧击穿动力学的PIC/MCC模拟研究

PIC/MCC simulation of breakdown dynamics inside high power microwave output window

高功率微波在受控热核聚变加热、微波高梯度加速器、高功率雷达、定向能武器、超级干扰机及冲击雷达等方面有着重要的应用.本文针对高功率微波输出窗内侧氩气放电击穿过程,建立了二次电子倍增和气体电离的一维空间分布、三维速度分布(1D3V)模型,并开发了相应的PIC/MC程序代码.研究了气压、微波频率、微波振幅对放电击穿的影响.结果表明:在真空情况下,介质窗放电击穿只存在二次电子倍增过程;在低气压和稍高气压时,二次电子倍增和气体电离共存;在极高气压时,气体电离占主导.给出了不同气压下电子、离子的密度和静电场的空间分布.此外还观察到,在500 mTorr时,随着微波振幅或微波频率的变化,气体电离出现的时刻和电离产生的等离子体峰值位置有较大差异,尤其是当微波频率(GHz)在数值上是微波振幅(MV/m)的2倍时,气体电离出现的较早.

High power microwave（HPM） has important applications in controlled thermonuclear fusion heating, microwave high-gradient accelerator, high-power radar, directed-energy weapon, super jammer, impact radar, etc. The window breakdown of HPM has been extensively studied, and some research progress in this respect has been made. However,the researches on the transition of window breakdown from multipactor discharge to rf plasma are still not enough in-depth. Especially, the influences of microwave frequency and microwave amplitude during breakdown need further studying. This paper focuses on the process of dielectric multipactor and background argon ionization during the discharge breakdown near the HPM dielectric window/vacuum interface. A one-dimensional-spatial-distribution-andthree-dimensional-velocity-distribution（1D3V） electrostatic model with using particle-in-cell simulation is adopted in present work. The model includes secondary electron emission, electrostatic field induced by the remaining positive charge on the dielectric window, the motion of charged particles under electrostatic and microwave field, and the collision process between electron and background gas, and the corresponding PIC/MCC code is also developed. We examine the effects of gas pressure, microwave frequency and microwave amplitude on discharge breakdown. It is found that there exists only electron multipactor process during the discharge breakdown on dielectric window in vacuum. At low pressures（10 m Torr, 500 mTorr） and slightly high pressure（10 Torr）, electron multipactor and gas ionization are coexistent. However, at an extremely high pressure（760 Torr）, the gas ionization dominates the breakdown process. At the same time, the position of plasma density peak moves away from the dielectric window as the gas pressure increases,which is the consequence of the competition between secondary electron multiplication on the dielectric window and gas ionization in the body region. It can be seen that the advantage of gas ionization gradually increases as the gas pressure increases. In addition, it is also observed that at 500 mTorr, the moment of gas ionization moves forward first and then backward with the increase of the microwave amplitudes or the microwave frequency, especially when the increment of frequency is numerically twice that of the amplitude, gas ionization occurs earliest. This phenomenon is explained by the secondary electron emission model. Meanwhile, the results show that the position of plasma density peak from gas ionization gradually approaches to the dielectric window as the microwave amplitude increases. However,with continually increasing the microwave frequency, the plasma density peak moves away from the dielectric window first and then approaches to the dielectric window.