Effects of capacitor termination to an antenna coil on the plasma parameters in a radio frequency inductively coupled plasma

Abstract

The effects of capacitor termination to a solenoidal antenna coil on the plasma parameters, such as the plasma density, the electron temperature, the electron energy distribution function and the plasma potential, are studied in an Ar or O2/N2 gas mixture inductively coupled plasma (ICP). As the capacitance is varied from tens to hundreds of pF, the plasma parameters change significantly. When the reactance of the capacitor is half that of the antenna, there is a resonance condition where the electrostatic coupling between the antenna coil and the chamber wall is effectively suppressed. The plasma density is maximal, while the electron temperature and the plasma potential are minimal under this resonance condition. This result shows that the ICP generated by the antenna coil with capacitor termination can be applied to a plasma process that requires high plasma density and low ion damage. The ashing process of a photoresistor by the ICP source with capacitor termination is also performed in this study and it is found that the ashing rate is enhanced under the resonance condition compared with the non-resonance condition.