Publication
Title
Effect of dust particle size on the plasma characteristics in a radio frequency capacitively coupled silane plasma
Author
Abstract
Compared with dust-free plasmas, the existence of dust particles in plasmas may greatly influence the plasma properties. such as the plasma density, electron temperature, sheath properties, electron energy distribution function (EEDF) as well as the heating mechanism. In this work, a 1D hybrid fluid/MC model has been developed to investigate the interaction between dust and plasma in a low-pressure silane discharge sustained in a radio frequency capacitively coupled plasma, in which we assume spherical dust particles with a given radius are generated by taking the sum of the production rate of Si2H4- and Si2H5- as the nucleation rate. From our simulation, the plasma may experience definite perturbation by dust particles with a certain radius (more than 50nm) with an increase in electron temperature first, which further induces a rapid rise in the positive and negative ion densities. Then, the densities begin to decline due to the gradual lack of sufficient seed electrons. In addition, as the dust radius increases, the high energy tails of the EEDFs will be enhanced for discharge maintenance, accompanied by a decline in the population of low-energy electrons in comparison with those of pristine plasma. Furthermore, an obvious bulk heating is observed apart from the a-mode and local field reversal heating. This may contribute to the enhanced bulk electric field (also called the drift field) as a result of electron depletion via the dust. In addition, large-sized dust particles that accumulate near the sheaths tend to form two stable density peaks with their positions largely influenced by the time-averaged sheath thickness. A detailed study of the effects of the external parameters, including pressure, voltage and frequency, on the spatial distribution of dust particles is also conducted.
Language
English
Source (journal)
Journal of physics: D: applied physics. - London
Publication
London : 2019
ISSN
0022-3727
DOI
10.1088/1361-6463/AAE5CF
Volume/pages
52 :1 (2019) , 16 p.
Article Reference
015206
ISI
000448423800002
Medium
E-only publicatie
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
Full text (open access)
Full text (publisher's version - intranet only)
UAntwerpen
Faculty/Department
Research group
Project info
Computer modelling and experimental validation of plasmas and plasma- surface interactions, for a deep insight in cryogenic etching (Cryoetch).
Publication type
Subject
Affiliation
Publications with a UAntwerp address
External links
Web of Science
Record
Identifier
Creation 10.12.2018
Last edited 09.10.2023
To cite this reference