A study of jet formation during the sputtering of electrodes in an arc discharge for the different currents

This work is devoted to experimental and theoretical studies of the sputtering of electrodes in an arc discharge. The temperature distribution in the working chamber during arc discharge is analyzed depending on the discharge current. On the basis of experimental data on the anode sublimation and interelectrode distance, a fan jet is simulated, which is generated during the anode sputtering in an arc discharge. The calculation is carried out using the model describing the processes occurring in the arc plasma, jet propagation, transport of particles by the jet and their ionization. The numerical simulation results for the radial temperature distribution are consistent with the experimental data. The experiments show that an increase in the discharge current leads to an increase in the concentration of fullerenes and graphite structures in the soot. Based on the simulation data, it is shown that this effect is a result of the longer residence time of growing carbon particles in a high-temperature zone (1000-2800 K) at high arc discharge currents.