Control of Magnetic Field for Sustainment of Ion Production and Uniform Ion Flux to Substrate in Neutral Loop Discharge Plasma

Abstract

We simulated the electron and ion motions in a neutral loop discharge plasma under the control of the foot of separatrix sweeping over a substrate and the neutral loop moving within a short distance from the RF antenna by a Monte Carlo method. We analyzed the distributions of ion production and ion flux to the substrate. We revealed that ion production is sensitive to the gradient of magnetic field rather than the electric field strength. Moreover, by superposing the flux distributions weighted by the passage time of the foot of separatrix on the substrate, we obtained a uniform time-averaged distribution of ion flux to the substrate in a radius range of r = 4.0-14.0 cm with σ/m = 0.25% (m: the average, σ: the standard deviation).