Reducing self-contamination in low-energy capacitively-coupled RF plasmas
other
For nanomanufacturing processes like plasma etching or plasma deposition, there is an interest in plasma sources with (independently) tunable parameters, such as ion energy, ion flux and pressure. To achieve this, we develop low energy capacitively-coupled plasma (CCP) systems that can be used to study the effect of relevant ion fluxes on optical components. An important parameter of these plasma sources is self-contamination; when studying the effect of plasma on materials or components, contamination produced by the plasma source or setup itself can change the sample surface chemistry, thereby obscuring the effects under study. Typically, our capacitively-coupled RF plasma (RF-CCP) sources use a discharge ignited in a gap between two disks. The hydrogen ion flux to the grounded disk has an energy corresponding to the plasma potential, which is typically 10-20 eV, and the ion current density is between 0.1-10 A/m2. The ion energy at the RF electrode can be significantly higher (it can reach 100-400 eV for the standard 13.56 MHz RF frequency), leading to potential sputtering of the RF electrode and subsequent contamination of the sample. We explore variations in design and operation parameters to reduce the electrode sputtering.
TNO Identifier
961378
Publisher
TNO
Source title
24th Euro-physics Conference on Atomic and Molecular Physics of Ionized Gases, 17-21 July 2018, Glasgow, Scotland, UK
Collation
1 p.
Place of publication
Delft
Files
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