Evidence of weak plasma series resonance heating in the H-mode of neon and neon/argon inductively coupled plasmas

Abstract

Phase-resolved optical emission spectroscopy measurements in argon and neon inductively coupled plasmas (ICPs) have revealed a surplus of high-energy electrons in neon-containing plasmas. Differences between results of emission model analyses using neon and argon lines (as well as probe measurements) also indicate a high-energy enhancement in neon-containing plasmas. The abundance of these extra high-energy electrons is correlated with the sheath thickness near the rf antenna and can be reduced by either adding a Faraday shield (external shielding) or increasing the plasma density. A comparison of modelled and experimental values of the 13.56 MHz time modulation of select neon emission lines strongly suggests plasma series resonance heating adjacent to the ICP antenna as the source of the extra heating.

Diagnostics of Ne–Ar mixture plasma using a fine‐structure resolved collisional radiative model

“…They also carried out optical absorption spectroscopy (OAS) measurements and reported the 1s i levels populations. [17] They also obtained the populations of the 2p 5 3s fine-structure levels by OES branching fraction method and their values agreed with the values obtained from OAS measurements. However, they mentioned that the OAS results are more accurate and within the error bar of 15%.…”

“…Further, to demonstrate the applicability, the present CR model is applied to the diagnostics of low-pressure Ne-Ar mixture plasma by Boffard et al [17] They reported the spectroscopic measurements of Ne-Ar mixture plasma for a radio frequency discharge at 600 W power. The plasma column was cylindrical with 50 cm diameter and 15 cm height.…”

“…Boffard et al have studied plasma series resonance heating in Ne and Ne-Ar inductively coupled plasma (ICP). [17] In this light, the present work focuses on the development of a fine-structure resolved CR model for Ne-Ar mixture plasma. Earlier, our group reported various diagnostic studies on pure [18][19][20] and mixture rare gas plasma [21][22][23] through developing CR models.…”

“…electron temperature and electron density were also measured through the Langmuir probe. In the present work, we have devolved a fine-structure resolved CR model for Ne-Ar plasma and extracted the information of electron temperature, electron density, and 1s i level populations from optical measurements of Boffard et al [17] More details of the experimental setup and spectroscopic measurement are available in previous publications. [17] In section 2, we discuss the details of present CR model.…”

Electron heating via self-excited plasma series resonance in geometrically symmetric multi-frequency capacitive plasmas

“…Klick et al demonstrated that the detection of the PSR oscillations by a current sensor implemented into the grounded chamber wall allows determining the electron density and temperature via Self-Excited Electron Resonance Spectroscopy (SEERS) [35,53]. Self-excited oscillations are not limited to CCRF plasmas, but can be found in various other types of bounded plasmas, such as inductively coupled plasmas operated in the E-mode [54,55] or hybrid combinations of inductively/capacitively coupled plasmas [56,57], too.…”