Numerical modelling of MPA-CVD reactors with the discontinuous Galerkin finite element method

In this article we develop a fully self consistent mathematical model describing the formation of a hydrogen plasma in a microwave power assisted chemical vapour deposition (MPA-CVD) reactor employed for the manufacture of synthetic diamond. The underlying multi-physics model includes constituent equations for the background gas mass average velocity, gas temperature, electromagnetic field energy and plasma density. The proposed mathematical model is numerically approximated based on exploiting the discontinuous Galerkin finite element method. We demonstrate the practical performance of this computational approach on a variety of CVD reactor geometries for a range of operating conditions.