Plasma-Neutral Gas Structure in a Magnesium Cathodic Arc Operating at Oxygen Gas with Experimental Comparison

The plasma-neutral gas structure generated in a magnesium cathodic arc operated with oxygen gas at a constant current of 50 A has been investigated by employing a simplified one-dimensional fluid model. The model includes elastic collisions and charge-exchange reactions between metallic particles and gas molecules, and also generation and recombination of gaseous ions by electron impact. The distribution profiles of density and velocity of species along the axial direction were obtained at different background gas pressures (in the range of 0.7∼3.0 Pa) by this model. A comparison with the experiments was made. At lower gas pressures, the depositing particles were mainly the metallic ions with a larger kinetic energy. As the gas pressure increased, the magnesium atoms with smaller kinetic energy acted as the dominant depositing species. Deter- mined by the minimization of the system’s total energy, MgO(100) or/and MgO(110) orientation appeared easily in the MgO films at lower gas pressures, and at higher gas pressures, the film preferred orientation was MgO(111).