Electron heating enhancement due to plasma series resonance in a capacitively coupled RF discharge: Electrical modeling and comparison to experimental measurements

Abstract

The electron heating enhancement due to the self-excitation of the plasma series resonance in capacitively coupled plasmas is revisited by a combination of an equivalent circuit model and experiments. To improve the model accuracy, measured voltage waveforms at the powered electrode are used instead of prescribing a sinusoidal voltage supply in series with a bias capacitance. The results calculated from the electrical model are consistent with the experimental measurements performed by a Langmuir probe with verification of a microwave interferometer, at pressures of 0.2 and 0.3 Torr. High harmonics occurring in the discharge currents agree with observations in previous research. The nonlinear plasma series resonance effect is found to have a notable contribution to both ohmic and stochastic heating evaluated by the electron heating efficiencies.