ISSN:
1089-7550
Source:
AIP Digital Archive
Topics:
Physics
Notes:
The ion energy distributions (IEDs) striking surfaces in rf glow discharges are important in the context of plasma etching during the fabrication of microelectronics devices. In discharges sustained in molecular gases or multicomponent gas mixtures, the shape of the IED and the relative magnitudes of the ion fluxes are sensitive to ion–molecule collisions which occur in the presheath and sheath. Ions which collisionlessly traverse the sheaths or suffer only elastic collisions arrive at the substrate with a measurably different IED than do ions which undergo inelastic collisions. In this article we present measurements and results from parametric calculations of IEDs incident on the grounded electrode of a rf glow discharge sustained in a He/N2 gas mixture while using a Gaseous Electronics Conference Reference Cell (33.3 Pa, 13.56 MHz). We found that the shape of the IEDs for N+3 and N+4 provide evidence for inelastic ion–molecule reactions which have threshold energies of 〈10 eV. © 1996 American Institute of Physics.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.360795
