Dust Charging in Electronegative SiH₄ Plasmas

We theoretically investigate the dust charging in electronegative silane (SiH₄) plasmas, taking into account the effects of UV photodetachment. It is found that UV photodetachment could significantly lower the dust negative charge and even makes dust grains be positively charged under some special conditions. In addition, the other parameters, involving the negative ion and dust number densities, electron temperature and dust radius, have great effects upon the dust charging.