Efficient 3D Plasma Ion Source Modeling with Adaptive Mesh Refinement

75501-Current and future experiments sponsored by the DOE¿s Heavy Ion Fusion Program will require higher brightness beams, allowing little or no aberration at the emitter. To achieve this, accurate computer modeling of the plasma ion source will be needed to correctly model the plasma sheath region and time-dependent effects. Several commercial codes exist, but all have limitations due to the incompleteness of their modeling and/or their lack of usability as a module. This project will develop a computer plasma source simulation module that accurately models steady state and time dependent plasma sources, with the capability of efficiently handling multiple spatial scale problems. Phase I will develop a time-dependent, two dimensional plasma source module that can be used as a standalone code or as a module in other codes. The plasma sheath will be modeled using Adaptive Mesh Refinement (AMR), to accurately and efficiently capture the multiple spatial scale nature of the problem. A systematic study of several interesting cases will be performed, and the model will be assessed with respect to computational time and accuracy, with increasingly higher degrees of AMR refinement. Phase II will generalize the work to three dimensions. Commercial Applications and Other Benefits as described by the awardee: In addition to the application for Heavy Ion Fusion, an efficient, predictable, three-dimension ion source code should find use in the ion lithography and plasma processing industries.