Plasma density measurements of confined capacitively coupled plasma by microwave interferometer and ion energy distribution function methods

Abstract

Measurements of hydrogen plasma density, are made in a symmetric single frequency confined capacitively coupled plasma (C-CCP) RF system. Comparison is made between density measured by microwave interferometer (MWI) and electrode wall ion density gathered from Ion Energy Distribution Function (IEDF) responses. Ion number density at electrode wall is obtained by two methods as IEDF integration method and IEDF splitting method. Both methods were compared with MWI and a linear relation is obtained between both methods and MWI. It is demonstrated that electrode wall surface density obtained by IEDF splitting and IEDF integral methods are about 50,000 times less than the bulk plasma density, and integral method reads more data than splitting method. The three different measurement results are compared and they are in good qualitative agreement; the deviation in ratio of bulk plasma density measured by MWI to number density at the electrode wall resolved from ion energy distribution function is greatest at highest pressure or electrode voltages/powers. The reasons for deviations are explained by analysis of the potential drop across the presheath decreases with respect to increased applied power.