Diagnosis of a plasma in plasma-sheath resonance

摘要

In this contribution we propose a study of a new operation mode of radio-frequency plasma reactors for low pressure material processing. Pressures of the order of, or under, a Pascal are increasingly utilised, because of the absence of collisional effects in the sheath. However, two major obstacles have limited the development towards low pressure range: the low processing rate and the difficulty of coupling power to a hardly collisional system. Both these points could be addressed using the standard parallel plate radiofrequency reactor, which is the most commonly utilised type, in a different operational regime. The new reactor is driven at least in part, at a frequency which corresponds to the plasma-sheath resonance. This resonance has been studied in connection with the RF probe in DC plasmas.