Mechanism of surface modification in the plasma-surface interaction in electrical arcs

Electrical sparks and arcs are plasma discharges that carry large currents and can strongly modify surfaces. This damage usually comes in the form of micrometer-sized craters and frozen-in liquid on the surface. Using a combination of experiments, plasma and atomistic simulation tools, we now show that the observed formation of deep craters and liquidlike features during sparking in vacuum is explained by the impacts of energetic ions, accelerated under the given conditions in the plasma sheath to kiloelectron volt energies, on surfaces. The flux in arcs is so high that in combination with kiloelectron volt energies it produces multiple overlapping heat spikes, which can lead to cratering even in materials such as Cu, where a single heat spike normally does not.