Paper PS-TuP26
Modeling of High-Density Magnetically Enhanced Inductive Plasmas Generated by Symmetrical Solenoid Coils

Tuesday, October 31, 2017, 6:30 pm, Room Central Hall

A magnetically enhanced inductive plasma source (MEIPS) was proposed to address the limitations of conventional inductively coupled plasma (ICP) sources. The MEIPS combined two solenoid induction coils wound in opposite directions and the grounded ends were positioned on the dielectric window. The capacitive coupling between the plasma and the coils was subsequently minimized. The induction coils created a confined magnetic field within the plasma region, leading to a significant increase in the energy-coupling efficiency. To understand the plasma characteristics under different conditions, the MEIPS discharges were modeled and compared with a conventional planar coil ICP discharge. It was found that the MEIPS could generate a much higher plasma density than the conventional ICP discharge under the same input power. By inserting a ferrite core into the coils, the MEIPS discharge could ignite at ~2 MHz and the plasma density dramatically increased with the increase in the frequency until ~6 MHz. Then the plasma density decreased gradually as the frequency further increased due to the dramatically reduced permeability at high frequencies. Comparing with an air core, the ferrite core led to more stable magnetic field distribution with a higher maximal flux denisty B.