Electronegative plasmas diluted by rare gases

Abstract

This paper considers the case where an electronegative gas is diluted by an electropositive one, as is typical in plasma processing applications, and examines the way in which the relevant parameters vary.The impact of dilution is examined over a wide range of pressures (3 mTorr cm–300 Torr cm) and a wide range of degrees of ionization (10−6–10−2), for dilutions of 0%, 90% and 99%.In order to be specific, the case of argon diluting chlorine is studied in detail. But comparison with experiment awaits such data, so only general conclusions can be reached.

Properties of highly electronegative plasmas produced in a multipolar magnetic-confined device with a transversal magnetic filter

“…Negative ion etching with low energies and low charging potentials is also attractive for low damage processing required in node technologies below 50 nm [30]. So far, despite good theoretical coverage [31][32][33][34][35] and a large variety of methods for negative ion diagnostics including optical emission [36], photodetachment [37], Langmuir probe [38][39][40][41][42][43], thermal probe [44], propagation of the ion acoustic waves [45][46][47] and Thomson scattering [48] there are still important basic questions related to highly electronegative discharges that need to be answered.…”

Near-threshold electron-impact doubly differential cross sections for the ionization of argon and krypton

“…The low energy electron impact ionization of the rare gases plays an important role in the transport of electrons in rare gas discharges [9] which has relevance in plasma applications, as in the processing of semiconductor wafers and plasma tubes [10,11], where rare gases are most frequently used as buffer gases. The study of the electron impact ionization of these targets is complicated by the dynamics in the change of the np 6 → np 5 core configuration by the single ionization process, viz.…”

Computational study of sheath structure in chemically active plasmas

“…Particle simulations were used for the modelling of interaction between low-temperature multicomponent plasma [6] (multicomponent means that we use more than one type of both positive and negative ions for the plasma description) and the immersed substrates. Another technique of computational physics, the macroscopic kinetic approach, was chosen for the study of chemical processes in the chemically active plasma.…”