Comparative characterization of high-density plasma reactors using emission spectroscopy from VUV to NIR

Pu, Yi-Kang; Guo, Zhi-Gang; Kang, Zheng-De; Ma, Jie; Guan, Zhi-Cheng; Zhang, Guang-Yu; Wang, En-Ge

doi:10.1351/pac200274030459

Pure Appl. Chem., 2002, Vol. 74, No. 3, pp. 459-464

http://dx.doi.org/10.1351/pac200274030459

Comparative characterization of high-density plasma reactors using emission spectroscopy from VUV to NIR

Yi-Kang Pu¹*, Zhi-Gang Guo¹, Zheng-De Kang¹, Jie Ma¹, Zhi-Cheng Guan¹, Guang-Yu Zhang² and En-Ge Wang²

¹ Department of Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
² Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100080, China

Abstract: Emission spectroscopy is used to investigate the effect of inert gas mixing in nitrogen plasmas generated in inductively coupled plasma (ICP) and electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) plasma sources. Vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) emission of resonance lines is used to determine concentration of atomic nitrogen while electron temperature is obtained from optical emission spectra. It is found that electron temperature can be either raised or reduced effectively by mixing helium or argon in a nitrogen discharge. Electron-electron collisions and superelastic collisions involving metastable species are key factors in electron temperature tuning.