Energy and particle flow in low temperature plasmas

Abstract

Increased interest in the development of high density plasma sources for ultra large scale integrated circuit manufacturing with varying geometry and power coupling strategies require the development of 2D models for accurate plasma reactor studies. An objective of their research was to develop a computationally efficient numerical code that would be useful as a design tool for inductively coupled plasma reactors. To achieve that goal the authors created a 2D fluid model (INDUCT2D) of an argon discharge. As uniformity is a primary issue in wafer manufacturing they have used INDUCT2D to investigate the effect of pressure and reactor geometry on the spatial uniformity of the etching ion flux. They have found that the optimum pressure for maximum uniformity depends upon the spatial profile of the inductive heating, and decreases with the reactor aspect ratio.