Electron density measurements in highly electronegative plasmas

Abstract

In this paper we present experimental measurements of the electron density in very electronegative ‘ion–ion’ Ar–SF6 plasmas where previous investigations using Langmuir probes have observed electronegativities of up to 5000. The electron density is measured using a short matched dipole probe technique that provides a tolerance better than ±2 · 1013 m−3. The results demonstrate that the electron density in the low pressure plasma source (which contains a magnetic filter) can be reduced to around 2.7 · 1013 m−3 with a corresponding plasma electronegativity of about 4000; close to that from fluid simulation predictions. The highest electronegativity, and lowest electron density, is achieved with a pure SF6 plasma, while adding only 6% SF6 to Ar allows the electronegativity to be increased from 0 to a few hundred with a corresponding decrease in the electron density by more than a thousand. The impedance probe based on a short matched dipole appears to be a practical diagnostic that can be used for independent measurements of the electron density in very electronegative plasmas, and opens up the possibility to further investigate and optimize electronegative plasma sources.