In low-pressure capacitively coupled plasmas, high-energy electrons are collisionlessly heated by large rf fields in the sheaths while low-energy electrons are confined in the bulk plasma by the ambipolar potential. Low-energy electrons are typically inefficiently heated due to their low collisionality and the weak rf electric field present in the bulk. It is shown, however, that as a result of the nonlinear interaction between the electron motion and the weak rf field present in the bulk, low-energy electrons can be efficiently heated. Electrons in the bulk that bounce inside the electrostatic potential well with a frequency equal to the rf excitation frequency are efficiently heated by the coherent interaction with the rf field. This resonant collisionless heating can be very efficient and manifest itself as a plateau in the electron energy probability function.

We measured electrical characteristics of transversely magnetized capacitively coupled plasma at low pressure (10 mTorr). From these measurements, we found that the power characteristics of the magnetized discharge were different from those of the unmagnetized discharge. As the magnetic field increases, a square dependence of power characteristic at high current changes to a linear dependence. This can be understood as a power dissipation mode transition by a magnetic field. A calculation from a simple sheath model agrees well with the experimental data.

Charge resolved electrostatic diagnostic of colliding copper laser plasma plumes Phys. Plasmas 18, 103104 (2011) Electron density measurement of inductively coupled plasmas by terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) J. Appl. Phys. 110, 073303 (2011) A synchronized emissive probe for time-resolved plasma potential measurements of pulsed discharges Rev. Sci. Instrum. 82, 093505 (2011) Electrical time resolved metrology of dust particles growing in low pressure cold plasmas Phys. Plasmas 18, 093701 (2011) Additional information on Appl. Phys. Lett.

Although pulse-modulated plasma has overcome various problems encountered during the development of the high aspect ratio contact hole etching process, there is still a lack of understanding in terms of precisely how the pulse-modulated plasma solves the issues. In this research, to gain insight into previously observed phenomena, SiO2 etching characteristics were investigated under various pulsed plasma conditions and analyzed through plasma diagnostics. Specifically, the disappearance of micro-trenching from the use of pulse-modulated plasma is analyzed via self-bias, and the phenomenon that as power off-time increases, the sidewall angle increases is interpreted via radical species density and self-bias. Further, the change from etching to deposition with decreased peak power during processing is understood via self-bias and electron density. It is expected that this research will provide an informative window for the optimization of SiO2 etching and for basic processing databases including plasma diagnosis for advanced plasma processing simulators.

A method for precise measurement of absolute electron density in the plasma using plasma frequency is proposed. The phase difference between two antennas (radiating and detecting antennas) and its slow time modulation was used, instead of the transmittance used in previous cutoff probe, and a remarkable result is observed. This method can determine the absolute electron density precisely: It is not only in a good agreement with the previous method very closely but also is able to find the cutoff point clearly even in difficult conditions where there are ambiguities to determine the cutoff point with previous method.