Self-Consistent Description of Nitrogen dc Glow Discharge

A self-consistent hybrid Monte Carlo fluid model is presented to describe the nitrogen dc glow discharge. The movement of fast electrons is simulated by the Monte Carlo method while the dynamics of slow electrons and ions is by fluid equations. The spatial features of charged species and the corresponding electric field throughout the discharge have been calculated, which include the creation rates of ions and slow electrons, densities of the charged species, the electric field and the potential distribution. These closely related results can give a self-consistent explanation of the discharge characteristics throughout the space of nitrogen dc glow discharge. The calculated ion density is also compared with the corresponding experimental result.