Plasma diagnostic studies of the activated reactive evaporation process

Abstract

Plasma volume reactions play an important role in the deposition of films by plasma-assisted processes. We have applied several techniques to the analysis of the plasma volume in the activated reactive evaporation process. Neutral mass spectrometry, plasma mass spectrometry and optical emission spectroscopy (OES) were used to examine the nature and relative concentrations of neutral, excited neutral and ionized species present in the process.Initial experiments involved evaporating titanium in the presence of CH4 and C2H2 gases. Results of plasma mass spectrometry and OES indicate several differences between the species observed depending on the reactive gas used and the evaporation rate used. These results have been used to explain possible reaction paths for TiC compound formation as well as to correlate the dependence of film properties on the deposition conditions.