Release of LoKI-MC

The group N-Plasmas Reactive : Modelling and Engineering (N-PRiME) has been consistently developing simulation tools to describe the electron kinetics and the plasma chemistry in low-temperature plasmas.

This systematic effort started three years ago with the release of the open-source LisbOn Kinetics Boltzmann solver (LoKI-B), and continued with the development of the LisbOn Kinetics (LoKI) suite, comprising a Boltzmann component (LoKI-B) and a Chemistry component (LoKI-C).

The LoKI tools are now reinforced with the release of a Monte Carlo code for electron kinetics simulations (LoKI-MC) in low-temperature plasmas, excited by uniform DC electric fields from different gas mixtures. LoKI-MC is written in C++, benefiting from a highly-efficient object-oriented structure, and was released as open-source code licensed under the GNU general public license.

According to the main developer, Tiago C Dias, the code follows 'the strategy and data organization of the two-term counterpart LoKI-B, since it easily addresses any complex mixture of atomic/molecular species, describing electron collisions with any target state (electronic, vibrational and rotational), characterized by any user-prescribed population.'

On input, the code requires the working conditions, the gas-mixture composition, the distributions of populations for the levels of the atomic/molecular gases considered, and the relevant sets of electron-scattering cross sections obtained from the open-access website LXCat. On output, it yields the electron energy and velocity distribution functions, the electron swarm parameters, the collision rate-coefficients, and the electron power absorbed from the electric field and transferred to the different collisional channels.

More information about LoKI-MC can be obtained from the paper T. C. Dias et al, Computer Physics Communications 108554 (2022).

The LoKI tools and data leverage on the scientific heritage in the field of non-equilibrium plasma kinetics of N-PRiME, and they were developed / consolidated resorting to well-grounded scientific foundations established decades ago in the group.