No abstract

A three-dimensional fluid model is developed to investigate the radio-frequency inductively coupled H2 plasma in a reactor with a rectangular expansion chamber and a cylindrical driver chamber, for neutral beam injection system in CFETR. In this model, the electron effective collision frequency and the ion mobility at high E-fields are employed, for accurate simulation of discharges at low pressures (0.3 Pa–2 Pa) and high powers (40 kW–100 kW). The results indicate that when the high E-field ion mobility is taken into account, the electron density is about four times higher than the value in the low E-field case. In addition, the influences of the magnetic field, pressure and power on the electron density and electron temperature are demonstrated. It is found that the electron density and electron temperature in the xz-plane along permanent magnet side become much more asymmetric when magnetic field enhances. However, the plasma parameters in the yz-plane without permanent magnet side are symmetric no matter the magnetic field is applied or not. Besides, the maximum of the electron density first increases and then decreases with magnetic field, while the electron temperature at the bottom of the expansion region first decreases and then almost keeps constant. As the pressure increases from 0.3 Pa to 2 Pa, the electron density becomes higher, with the maximum moving upwards to the driver region, and the symmetry of the electron temperature in the xz-plane becomes much better. As power increases, the electron density rises, whereas the spatial distribution is similar. It can be summarized that the magnetic field and gas pressure have great influence on the symmetry of the plasma parameters, while the power only has little effect.

Pulse modulation in inductively coupled plasmas (ICPs) has been proven as an effective method not only to restrain the charging effect in etching trenches but also as a potential approach to ameliorate the plasma uniformity. In this paper, a two-dimensional fluid model is employed to systematically study the modulation of the radial uniformity in pulsed dual-antenna Ar ICPs. The inner four-turn coils are connected to a continuous wave at the current of 5.0 A, and the outer three-turn coils are pulse modulated at various duty cycles and currents. The results indicate that when the outer coil current is fixed at 7.0 A, the electron density always shows an off-center distribution during the active-glow period when the duty cycle increases from 20% to 60%, due to the stronger electric field induced by the higher outer coil current. Although the ionization mainly happens at the reactor center during the after-glow period, the electron density distribution evolves from a center-high profile to a rather uniform distribution as duty cycle increases. Under the combined influence, the time-averaged electron density over one pulse period shifts from center-high over uniform to edge-high. When the pulse duty cycle is fixed at 50%, the time-averaged electron density distribution shifts from a center-high profile over uniform to an edge-high profile, as the outer coil current increases from 5.7 to 7.7 A. The results obtained in this work could help to optimize the plasma radial uniformity, which plays a significant role in improving the large-area plasma processing.

In this work, a fluid/Monte Carlo Collision (fluid/MCC) hybrid model is newly developed based on the framework of Multi-Physics Analysis of Plasma Sources (MAPS). This hybrid model could enjoy great accuracy in predicting the nonequilibrium phenomena in capacitively coupled plasmas (CCPs) and meanwhile avoid the limitation caused by the computational cost. Benchmarking against the well-established particle-in-cell/Monte Carlo collision (PIC/MCC) method and comparison with experimental data have been presented both in electropositive N2 discharges and electronegative O2 discharges. The results indicate that in N2 discharges, the ion density evolves from a uniform distribution to an edge-high profile as power increases. Besides, the electron energy distribution function (EEDF) at the bulk center exhibits a “hole” at about 3 eV, and the “hole” becomes less obvious at the radial edge, because more low energy electrons are generated there. In O2 discharges, the EEDF exhibits a Druyvesteyn-like distribution in the bulk region, and it evolves to a Maxwellian distribution in the sheath, indicating the dominant influence of the electric field heating there. The results obtained by the hybrid model agree well with those calculated by the PIC/MCC method, as well as those measured by double probe, except for slight discrepancy in absolute values. The qualitative agreement achieved in this work validates the potential of this hybrid model as an effective tool in the deep understanding of the plasma properties, as well as in the improvement of the plasma processing.

A bias power is usually applied in inductively coupled plasmas (ICP) to realize the separate control of the plasma density and the ion energy. In this research, a two-dimensional fluid/electron Monte Carlo hybrid model is developed to self-consistently investigate the bias effect on the stochastic heating and on the radial homogeneity in a biased argon ICP operated at low pressure (3 mTorr). The results show that the temporal evolution of the stochastic heating exhibits a plateau and a peak when the sheath collapses at high bias voltages, due to the limited sheath heating and the electron inertia. In addition, the plasma density in the diffusion chamber increases with bias voltage and bias frequency, because of the more pronounced stochastic heating both at the substrate and at the grounded wall. In the main discharge chamber, the plasma density decreases with bias voltage, due to the compression of the bulk plasma region, and this trend becomes less obvious at high bias frequency, because of the enhanced power absorption caused by the stochastic heating. Therefore, it is concluded that by tuning the bias voltage and bias frequency, the plasma radial uniformity could be modulated efficiently, which is very important for improving plasma processing.