AVS 47th International Symposium
    Plasma Science and Technology Tuesday Sessions
       Session PS-TuP

Paper PS-TuP3
Time Resolved Mass Spectrometric Plasma Diagnostics

Tuesday, October 3, 2000, 5:30 pm, Room Exhibit Hall C & D

Session: Poster Session
Presenter: G.J. Peter, Balzers Instruments, Liechtenstein
Authors: G.J. Peter, Balzers Instruments, Liechtenstein
G. Nicolussi, Balzers Instruments, Liechtenstein
N. Mueller, Balzers Instruments, Liechtenstein
Correspondent: Click to Email
The energy distribution of the ions in a plasma is one of the most important process parameters. This distribution can be measured for different ion species by a combination of an electrostatic energy filter and a mass spectrometer (a Plasma Process Monitor PPM). Thus far, most of such investigations have been performed in plasmas under equilibrium conditions. On the other hand, little is known about the ion energy distribution during ignition of plasmas, i.e. in a non-equilibrium state. Furthermore, it has become a common technique to modulate deposition and cleaning plasmas by means of periodically changing magnetic and/or electric fields which as well results in non-equilibrium plasma conditions. Measurements of the transient ion energy distributions in such processes contribute to a deeper understanding of the mechanisms involved. This in turn, facilitates process development in order to avoid conditions that might result in electronic device damage (e.g. due to high energetic ions). Our investigation includes 3 different non-equilibrium plasmas: A DC-planar magnetron plasma during ignition, a magnetically modulated DC plasma, and a power modulated RF-plasma. The PPM utilized in these experiments is a combination of a differentially pumped specially adapted cylindrical mirror energy analyser and a quadrupole mass filter with mass ranges from 0 - 512 amu up to 0 - 2048 amu. An energy resolution of 0.3 eV and unit mass resolution over the whole mass range are achieved. To perform time resolved measurements the mass and energy filter are set to the desired values and data acquisition is made with a Multi-Channel Scaler (MCS).