Abstract
The flux, energy and angular distribution of ions generated from inductively coupled argon plasma were measured, using a gridded retarding field ion analyzer, to investigate the dynamics of ions in the plasma. The ion flux and the ion density at the sheath edge were found to increase with power, but to decrease with pressure. The ion energy was modulated, showing two peaks in the argon plasma, because the ratio of the ion transit time to the rf period was less than or comparable to unity. The peak, mean, minimum, and maximum ion energy decreased with increasing pressure, but were nearly constant as power was varied. The ion angular distributions had a Gaussian distribution peaked at zero angle from surface normal. The full-width-at-half-maximum was increased with increasing both power and pressure. The ion temperature was readily obtained from the ion angular distributions, and the value was in the range of 0.08–0.14 eV, agreeing with typical ion temperature values measured previously in inductively coupled plasmas.
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Kim, CK. Ion dynamics in plasma processing for the fabrication of ultrafine structures. Korean J. Chem. Eng. 22, 762–769 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02705796
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02705796