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Partially Ionized Plasma Physics and Technological Applications

Partially ionized plasma physics has attracted a lot of attention recently due to numerous technological applications made possible by the increased sophistication of computer modelling, the depth of the theoretical analysis, and the technological applications to a vast field of the manufacturing for computer components. The partially ionized plasma is characterized by a significant presence of neutral particles in contrast to fully ionized plasma. The theoretical analysis is based upon solutions of the kinetic Boltzmann equation yielding the non-Maxwellian electron energy distribution function (EEDF) thereby emphasizing the difference with a fully ionized plasma. The impact of the effect on discharges in inert and molecular gases is described in detail yielding the complex nonlinear phenomena in plasma self-organization. A few examples of such phenomena are given including the non-monotonic EEDFs in the discharge afterglow in mixture of argon with the molecular gas NF3; the explosive generation of cold electron populations in capacitive discharges, hysteresis of EEDF in inductively coupled plasmas. Recently, highly advanced computer codes were developed in order to address the outstanding problems of plasma technology. These developments are briefly described in general terms.