Numerical study of an electrostatic plasma sheath with non-thermal electrons and charged nanoparticles

Numerical solutions of the multi-fluid equations are used to investigate the effects of non-thermal electrons on the structure of an electrostatic plasma sheath in the presence of nano-sized dust grains. It is assumed that electrons obey the Cairns distribution Cairns et al. Geophys. Res. Lett. 22, 2709 (1995)], with a parameter α that determines the effect of non-thermal electrons and shows the deviation from the Maxwellian distribution. The results revealed that sheath parameters are strongly modified in the presence of non-thermal electrons and with increasing α the sheath width increases. With the increase in α, the absolute dust charge increases while the dust density is reduced.