Characteristics of the surface-wave plasma generated by a radial-line slot antenna (RLSA) have been studied by both direct plasma probe measurements and numerical simulations. Some unique characteristics have been found, including excellent critical radial plasma uniformity, low electron temperature under various pressure conditions, the main plasma generation area of RLSA being limited in the plasma surface, and few high-energy electrons existing in the wafer region. Numerical simulations are implemented to reveal the more essential difference in plasma generation between the RLSA and the other plasma sources, where the superiority of RLSA plasma has been confirmed. The features of high plasma uniformity and low electron temperature lead to free plasma damage in our associated etching process.
Capacitively coupled plasma (CCP) has gain wide attention due to its important applications in industry. The researches of CCP mainly focus on the discharge characteristics and plasma parameters under different discharge conditions to obtain a good understanding of the discharge, find good methods of controlling the charged particle properties, and improve the process performance and efficiency. The controlling of plasma parameters is based on the following three aspects: gas, chamber, and power source. Changing these discharge conditions can directly influence the sheath dynamics and the charged particle heating process, which can further influence the electron and ion distribution functions, the plasma uniformity, and the production of neutral particles, etc. Based on a review of the recent years’ researches of CCP, the electron heating dynamics and several common methods of controlling the plasma parameters, i.e. voltage waveform tailoring, realistic secondary electron emission, and magnetized capacitively coupled plasma are introduced and discussed in detail in this work.
Radio frequency capacitively coupled plasmas (RF CCPs) play a pivotal role in various applications ranging from etching and deposition processes on microscopic scales in semiconductor manufacturing. During the discharge processes, the plasma series resonance (PSR) effect is easily observed in electrically asymmetric and geometrically asymmetric discharges, which could largely influence the power absorption, ionization rate, etc. In this work, the PSR effect arising from geometrically and electrically asymmetric discharges in argon-oxygen mixture gas is mainly investigated by using a plasma equivalent circuit model coupled with a global model. At relatively low pressure, as the Ar content (α) is increasing, the inductance of the bulk is weakened, which leads to a more obvious PSR phenomenon and a higher resonance frequency (w psr). When the Ar content is fixed, varying the pressure and gap distance could also have different effects on the PSR effect. With the increase of the pressure, the PSR frequency shifts towards the higher order, but in the case of much higher pressure, the PSR oscillation would be strongly damped by frequent electron and neutral collisions. With the increase of the gap distance, the PSR frequency becomes lower. In addition, electrically asymmetric waveforms applied to a geometrically asymmetric chamber may weaken or enhance the asymmetry of the discharge and regulate the PSR effect. In this work, the Ar/O2 electronegative mixture gas is introduced in a capacitive discharge to study the PSR effect under GAE and EAE, which can provide necessary guidance in laboratory research and current applications.
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