AVS 46th International Symposium
    Plasma Science and Technology Division Tuesday Sessions
       Session PS-TuA

Paper PS-TuA9
Diagnostics of Large-area Plasma Produced by Surface Waves on a Metal Wall with Periodicity

Tuesday, October 26, 1999, 4:40 pm, Room 609

Session: Plasma Diagnostics II
Presenter: T. Yamauchi, Toshiba Corporation, Japan
Authors: T. Yamauchi, Toshiba Corporation, Japan
K. Aoki, Toshiba Corporation, Japan
H. Sugai, Nagoya University, Japan
Correspondent: Click to Email
Surface-wave plasma is a promising next-generation plasma source since it readily yields a large-area high-density plasma at low pressures. In most cases, surface waves at 2.45GHz are excited along a dielectric wall, however, the use of a large-area dielectric wall often induces serious wall erosion and impurity release. To avoid such problems, the use of a metal wall with periodic structures which results in an increase in plasma density as well as an improvement in density uniformity is proposed in this paper. The top of the vacuum chamber consists of an Al plate(340mm diameter) comprising two quartz windows (20mm width) which also serve also serving as slot antennas. A periodic structure was installed on the Al plate. The experimental conditions are an Ar gas flow rate of 60sccm, a pressure from 30 to 70Pa and a microwave power of 2kW. We obtained the electron density of 10@super11@10@super12@cm@super-3@, which exceeds the cut off density (7.44 x10@super10@cm@super-3@)for 2.45GHz. The behavior of the ion saturation current, electron density and electric field intensity between two slots. Without the periodic structure the values show peaks under each slot antenna, thus indicating the influence of microwave radiation from the slot antennas themselves. Accordingly, it is revealed that the periodic structure on the metal wall is effective for generating a large-area surface-wave plasma.