Simulation of the formation of two-dimensional Coulomb liquids and solids in dusty plasmas

Abstract

Dust particle transport in low-temperature plasmas has recently received considerable attention due to the desire to minimize contamination of wafers during plasma processing of microelectronics devices. Laser light scattering observations of dust particles near wafers in reactive-ion-etching (RIE) radio frequency (rf) discharges have revealed clouds which display collective behavior. These observations have motivated experimental studies of the Coulomb liquid and solid properties of these systems. In this paper, we present results from a two-dimensional model for dust particle transport in RIE rf discharges in which we include particle-particle Coulomb interactions. We predict the formation of Coulomb liquids and solids. These predictions are based both on values of Γ>2 (liquid) and Γ>170 (solid), where Γ is the ratio of electrostatic potential energy to thermal energy, and on crystal-like structure in the pair correlation function. We find that Coulomb liquids and solids composed of trapped dust particles in RIE discharges are preferentially formed with increasing gas pressure, decreasing particle size, and decreasing rf power. We also observe the ejection of particles from dust crystals which completely fill trapping sites, as well as lattice disordering followed by annealing and refreezing.