Ion collection by planar Langmuir probes: Sheridan’s model and its verification

Dongsoo Lee and Noah Hershkowitz

Citation: Physics of Plasmas (1994-present) 14, 033507 (2007); doi: 10.1063/1.2715557

View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.2715557
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 PHYSICS OF PLASMAS 14, 033507 共2007兲

Ion collection by planar Langmuir probes: Sheridan’s model

and its verification
Dongsoo Lee and Noah Hershkowitza兲
Department of Engineering Physics, University of Wisconsin at Madison, Madison, Wisconsin 53706
共Received 16 January 2007; accepted 16 February 2007; published online 23 March 2007兲
Data analysis from planar Langmuir probes normally assumes that the sheath effects are not
significant in determining electron density and temperature when the Debye length is small
compared to the probe radius. However, analysis of ion saturation current requires careful attention
due to sheath expansion near the probe electrode. It is experimentally verified for the first time that
Sheridan’s numerical model 关T. E. Sheridan, Phys. Plasmas 7, 3084 共2000兲兴 provides a correct
method to measure the ion saturation current for which the ion density agrees with the electron
density in argon plasmas. © 2007 American Institute of Physics. 关DOI: 10.1063/1.2715557兴

I. INTRODUCTION
In weakly collisional plasmas with single-ion species,
when the ion collisional mean free path is significantly larger
than the Debye length, the Bohm criterion1 establishes a so-
lution to the ion’s behavior at the sheath–presheath boundary.
A presheath2,3 sets up in the plasma in order to accelerate the
ions to the Bohm velocity Cs at the sheath edge which is the
ion sound speed in the bulk plasma,
Cs = 冑kTe/mi ,
sured with the planar Langmuir probes. The ratio of ion satu-
ration current to electron density is calculated by his model
and it should be proportional to the Bohm velocity Cs 共Ref.
1兲. The results show that the ratios analyzed by Sheridan’s
model are proportional to Cs, while the ratio data by the
conventional extrapolation approach are not. The ion densi-
ties calculated from the corrected ion saturation currents
agree well with the electron densities calculated from the
electron saturation currents.
共1兲

where Te is the electron temperature and mi is the ion mass.
Here, Te is assumed to be much greater than the ion tempera-
ture Ti 共Te Ⰷ Ti兲.
Langmuir probes are widely used to measure plasma pa-
rameters, such as electron temperature, density, and electron
and ion saturation current. They are relatively easy to use,
but probe data are not analyzed simply. The first difficulty is
that ion currents are much smaller than electron currents. An
easy method to measure the ion saturation current is to bias
Langmuir probes at a large negative voltage with respect to
the plasma potential in order to minimize electron collection.
This leads to the second difficulty, that expansion of the
sheath around the probe can make the collection area much
larger than the physical probe area. A conventional method
of correcting the ion data is to linearly extrapolate the ion
current of an I-V curve of a Langmuir probe measured at a
large negative voltage with respect to the plasma potential.4,5
This procedure assumes that the sheath thickness is propor-
tional to the probe bias voltage 共Vb兲. Essentially, the same
method is used to measure the electron saturation current.
For electrons, e⌬Vb / kTe is small, while for ions the extrapo-
lation is over a large voltage range e⌬Vb / kTe Ⰷ 1, which is
somewhat arbitrary and can result in misleading values dur-
ing the extrapolation process.
The sheath expansion effect near the planar Langmuir
II. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
A schematic diagram of the experimental arrangement
employed for this study is shown in Fig. 1. The experiments
were carried out in a dc multidipole chamber.8 The plasma
was generated in a stainless steel chamber with an inner di-
ameter of 60 cm and a length of 70 cm. Neutral argon was
ionized by energetic electrons emitted from hot thoriated
tungsten filaments biased at −50 V with respect to the cham-
ber wall. The cylindrical surface of the chamber was sur-
rounded by a multidipole array of permanent magnets to im-
prove the plasma density and uniformity. The system had a
base pressure of 1 ⫻ 10−6 Torr using a turbomolecular pump
backed by a mechanical pump.
A Langmuir probe was employed to measure the ion
saturation current, electron density, and electron temperature.
The probe tip was constructed of a tungsten disk 4.0 mm in
radius. The Langmuir probe data showed that the electrons
had a bi-Maxwellian energy distribution in our plasmas. The
effective electron temperature 共Te兲 used for the calculation of
the Bohm velocity was computed as a harmonic average of
the two temperatures with density weighting,9
1
Te
= 冉冊 冉冊
nc 1
ne Tc
+
nh 1
ne Th
, 共2兲

probes that increases the ion collection area has been studied
by several authors.6,7 In this paper, we follow Sheridan’s
method7 for correcting the ion saturation current data mea-
a兲
Electronic mail: hershkowitz@engr.wisc.edu
where ne is the total electron density, nc and nh are the cold
and hot electron densities, and Tc and Th are the cold and hot
electron temperatures, respectively. The electron density was
obtained from the electron saturation current 共I*e 兲 of the
Langmuir probe,

1070-664X/2007/14共3兲/033507/4/$23.00 14, 033507-1 © 2007 American Institute of Physics

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 033507-2 D. Lee and N. Hershkowitz Phys. Plasmas 14, 033507 共2007兲

FIG. 1. Schematic of the dc multidipole chamber and Langmuir probe mea-

surement system.

1
I*e = eneSe
4
冑 8kTe
␲me
, 共3兲

where e is charge of the electron, Se is the electron collection

area, and me is the electron mass. The electron collection
area is equal to the physical probe area because the electrons
are collected to the probe with their thermal velocity at the
plasma potential where the electron saturation current is
measured.

III. INTERPRETATION OF THE ION SATURATION

CURRENT
In a collisionless single-ion species plasma, the ion satu-
ration current 共I*i 兲 to the probe is expressed by
I*i = ensSiCs = ensSi冑kTe/mi ,
where ns is the ion density at the sheath edge and Si is the ion
collection area. The potential drop across the presheath in a
collisionless plasma, which accelerates the ions to the Bohm
velocity, is given by
1
2
2 m iC s = e⌬V p ,
where ⌬V p is the plasma potential difference between the
bulk plasma and the sheath–presheath boundary. Then, the
ion density at the boundary is found from the Boltzmann
relation
ns = ni exp共− e⌬V p/kTe兲 ⬇ 0.6ni ,
where ni is the ion density in the bulk plasma. Combining
Eqs. 共4兲 with 共6兲, the ion saturation current is
I*i = 0.6eniSi冑kTe/mi = 0.6eneSi冑kTe/mi ,
where ne is the total electron density in the bulk. In Eq. 共7兲,
charge neutrality for singly charged ions is assumed. There-
fore, a normalized ion saturation current defined as the ion
saturation current divided by the electron density is linearly
proportional to the Bohm velocity in a given geometry of the
probe,
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FIG. 2. Illustration of the ion collection to the Langmuir probe electrode for
the cases of the 共a兲 physical and 共b兲 effective areas. Due to the sheath
expansion near the probe, more ions are collected in 共b兲.
共4兲
I*i
= 0.6eSiCs ⬀ Cs . 共8兲
ne
The proportionality constant in Eq. 共8兲 only depends on the
ion collection area Si, so it is independent of the plasma
共5兲 species provided that they are composed of singly charged
ions with single species.
When Langmuir probes are biased negatively, the mea-
sured ion current will be larger than that given by Eq. 共7兲,
which uses the probe area as the ion collection area. This is
because the “effective” ion collection area 共Seff兲 is larger than
共6兲 the “physical” probe area 共Sphy兲 due to the sheath expansion
illustrated in Fig. 2. Sheridan7 derived from his numerical
simulation that the ratio of the effective area to the physical
area could be expressed by
共7兲
Seff
= 1 + a␩bp . 共9兲
Sphy
Here, ␩ p is −e共Vb − V p兲 / kTe and V p is the plasma potential in
the bulk plasma. The fitting parameters a and b depend on
the probe radius 共r p兲 and Debye length 共␭D兲,
 033507-3 Ion collection by planar Langmuir probes:… Phys. Plasmas 14, 033507 共2007兲

FIG. 4. Measured and converted ion current in the argon plasma of

FIG. 3. Bohm velocity vs normalized ion saturation currents measured by 0.6 mTorr. The converted ion current is approximately constant over the
the conventional and Sheridan’s methods in the argon plasmas. bias voltages less than −20 V. The effective ion collection area increases as
the probe is biased more negatively.

a = 2.28共r p/␭D兲−0.749, b = 0.806共r p/␭D兲−0.0692 . 共10兲

The thickness of the electrode is ignored in his model. These In order to overcome the inaccuracy of the conventional
Sheridan sheath area equations were derived to be valid in method, Sheridan’s model is applied. Figure 4 shows an ex-
the following ranges: ample of the ion saturation current measurement in the argon
10 ⬍ r p/␭D ⬍ 45, 5 ⬍ ␩ p ⬍ 30. 共11兲 plasma of 0.6 mTorr. As predicted by Eq. 共12兲, the converted
ion current is almost constant over the probe bias voltages
Since the ion current is proportional to the ion collection and the area ratio increases with the negative bias voltage.
area, the “converted” ion current 共Ii,con兲 in which the sheath From the converted ion current, the ion saturation current is
effect is removed, can be calculated from the “measured” ion obtained by averaging the converted ion current from
current 共Ii,mea兲 with a combination of Eqs. 共7兲 and 共9兲, −45 to − 30 V. In our experiments, the ratios of r p / ␭D are
Ii,con Sphy 1 Ii,mea varied from 8.3 to 36.6 over the pressure ranges, which are
= = , Ii,con = . 共12兲 almost within the range of Eq. 共11兲. The bias voltages we
Ii,mea Seff 1 + a␩bp 1 + a␩bp
choose 共−45⬍ Vb ⬍ −30兲, where the ion current is constant in
Because the sheath effect has been eliminated, the converted Fig. 4, correspond to 58⬍ ␩ p ⬍ 84, which is out of the range
ion current should be approximately constant over the nega- of Eq. 共11兲. The voltages used to determine ␩ p are normal-
tive probe bias voltages and it provides the “correct” ion ized to Te = 0.56 eV, which is approximately equal to Tc
saturation current 共I*i 兲. = 0.55 eV. It is likely that the hot electrons contribute to

IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

As mentioned in the Introduction, the conventional and
easy method to measure the ion saturation current is to ex-
trapolate the ion current linearly to the plasma potential and
read the current at that voltage. Using this, the ion saturation
currents are measured at different pressures of the argon
plasmas. The argon gas pressures are varied from
0.2 to 1.0 mTorr. In this range, the electron densities are
3.41⫻ 108 − 2.20⫻ 109 cm−3, and the hot and cold electron
temperatures are 5.42− 4.16 eV and 1.33− 0.46 eV, respec-
tively. The values of nh / nc are varied from 0.10 to 0.01.
Figure 3 shows the normalized ion saturation current 共I*i / ne兲
obtained from the conventional method versus the Bohm ve-
locity 共Cs兲. Using the physical Langmuir probe area Sphy as
the ion collection area Si, the theoretical value of the propor-
tionality constant 共=0.6eSphy兲 in Eq. 共8兲, which is the slope of
the line, is 0.95⫻ 10−14 mA· cm3 / 共m · s−1兲. It is evident that
the normalized ion currents obtained from the conventional FIG. 5. Comparison of the electron densities from the electron saturation
current and the ion densities measured from the ion saturation current cor-
approach are in a strong disagreement with the theoretical
rected by Sheridan’s model. Both the densities match well with each other.
value, showing that it is not a reliable method to measure the The ion densities obtained from the conventional method are also graphed
ion density. for comparison.
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 033507-4 D. Lee and N. Hershkowitz Phys. Plasmas 14, 033507 共2007兲

currents measured for probe biases larger than −14 V, where being corrected by Sheridan’s model. The argon ion and
the corrected current deviates largely from the constant electron densities were in agreement with each other, too.
value. Our experiment is the first report of the experimental verifi-
The corrected experimental data in the argon plasmas are cation of the numerical simulation for the sheath expansion
also shown in Fig. 3. They show that I*i / ne from Sheridan’s effects calculated by Sheridan.
model is linearly proportional to the Bohm velocity. The
slope value is 共1.10± 0.03兲 ⫻ 10−14 mA· cm3 / 共m · s−1兲 and is ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
close to the theoretical value. Figure 5 shows that the argon We would like to thank Professor Amy Wendt for her
ion densities calculated from Eq. 共7兲 by Sheridan’s model are valuable comments.
in good agreement with the electron densities obtained from This work was supported by U.S. DOE Grant No. DE-
Eq. 共3兲, whereas the ion densities from the conventional FG02-97ER54437.
method are not. To our knowledge, this is the first experi-
1
mental verification of Sheridan’s numerical model. The D. Bohm, in The Characteristics of Electrical Discharges in Magnetic
model is verified to provide a good method to measure the Field, edited by A. Guthrie and R. K. Wakerling 共McGraw-Hill, New
York, 1949兲, Chap. 3.
ion density from the ion saturation current. 2
L. Oksuz and N. Hershkowitz, Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 145001 共2002兲.
3
L. Oksuz and N. Hershkowitz, Plasma Sources Sci. Technol. 14, 201
共2005兲.
V. SUMMARY 4
V. A. Godyak, R. B. Piejak, and B. M. Alexandrovich, J. Appl. Phys. 73,
3657 共1993兲.
A new method for correcting the ion saturation current 5
B-W. Koo, N. Hershkowitz, and M. Sarfaty, J. Appl. Phys. 86, 1213
measured by a planar Langmuir probe that is affected by the 共1999兲.
6
sheath expansion was verified experimentally. The findings J. D. Johnson and A. J. T. Holmes, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 61, 2628 共1990兲.
7
T. E. Sheridan, Phys. Plasmas 7, 3084 共2000兲.
showed that the normalized ion saturation current was lin- 8
D. Lee, G. Severn, L. Oksuz, and N. Hershkowitz, J. Phys. D 39, 5230
early proportional to the Bohm velocity and the proportion- 共2006兲.
9
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