AVS 46th International Symposium
    Plasma Science and Technology Division Wednesday Sessions
       Session PS-WeA

Paper PS-WeA7
The Effect of Capacitive Coupling on Inductively Coupled Fluorocarbon Plasma Processing

Wednesday, October 27, 1999, 4:00 pm, Room 609

Session: Dielectric Etching
Presenter: M. Schaepkens, State University of New York at Albany
Authors: M. Schaepkens, State University of New York at Albany
N.R. Rueger, State University of New York at Albany
J.J. Beulens, ASM International, The Netherlands
I. Martini, State University of New York at Albany
E.A. Sanjuan, State University of New York at Albany
X. Li, State University of New York at Albany
T.E.F.M. Standaert, State University of New York at Albany
P.J. Matsuo, State University of New York at Albany
G.S. Oehrlein, State University of New York at Albany
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Different inductively coupled plasma reactors differ in the amount of capacitive coupling, which may influence the plasma process in a non-obvious fashion. We performed a study of inductively coupled fluorocarbon plasmas in which the amount of capacitive coupling was systematically varied. It is found that the plasma density decreases while the electron temperature increases as the amount of capacitive coupling is increased at a constant inductive power level. The rate at which the dielectric (quartz) coupling window is eroded is found to scale with both the peak-to-peak RF voltage and the ion current density, and the dielectric window erosion is found to influence the resulting plasma gas-phase chemistry. The changes in these plasma electrical and chemical characteristics can, on their turn, have a large impact on the surface processes occurring in inductively coupled fluorocarbon plasmas, such as fluorocarbon deposition, fluorocarbon etching, SiO@sub 2@ etching and Si etching. An important result obtained in this study is that certain plasma etch processes, such as selective SiO@sub 2@-to-Si etching, can benefit to a certain extent from capacitive coupling effects.