Optical absorption and emission spectroscopy studies of ammonia-containing plasmas

Abstract

The chemistry of NH3/Ar/He plasmas was investigated, using a combination of ultraviolet (UV) optical absorption spectroscopy (OAS) and optical emission spectroscopy (OES). Absolute NH3 number densities in 1 Torr plasmas were measured by OAS as a function of inductively coupled plasma power and substrate heater temperature (Th). OES and actinometry were used to determine semi-quantitative H-atom density. A ‘self-actinometry’ method was introduced to measure the absolute number density of N2 that formed following the dissociation of NH3 and secondary reactions. In this approach, small amounts of N2 are added to the NH3-containing plasma, leading to an increase in the N2(C 3 Πu → B 3 Πg) emission intensity. This provides an accurate calibration factor for converting relative N2 emission intensities into absolute number densities. The number densities of NH3 were found to decrease with increasing power and Th, reaching >90% dissociation at 400 W and 900 K. N2 densities increased with power and Th. The majority of dissociated NH3 was converted to N2 (i.e. the total nitrogen content was conserved in the sum of these two species). The major hydrogen-containing species appeared to be H2; however, a substantial amount of H-atoms (comparable to H2) was present at the highest powers.