Uniformity enhancement of incident dose on concave surface in plasma immersion ion implantation assisted by beam-line ion source

Plasma immersion ion implantation (PIII) is a promising surface treatment technique for the irregular-shaped components. However, it is difficult to achieve uniform implantation along the surface of a concave sample due to the propagation and overlapping effect of plasma sheath. In this paper, a new ion implantation process is presented for improving the dose uniformity, especially for enhancing the lateral dose of the samples with concavities. In PIII enhanced by beam-line ions process, a beam-line ion source with certain energy is introduced from an external source into the concavity to suppress the sheath propagation and consequently to improve the dose uniformity. The time-dependent evolution of the potential, electrical field and the particle movement surrounding the surface of concave sample is studied by a particle-in-cell/Monte Carlo collision (PIC/MCC) simulation during a single bias high voltage (HV) pulse. The simulation results show that the plasma sheath propagation surrounding the concave sample is suppressed effectively by beam-line ions, and can be quasi-steady state during a single HV pulse. The influence of the energy of induced beam-line ions on the incident ion dose and energy distribution is discussed. Compared with the traditional PIII process, the dose uniformity of the sample surface is improved obviously due to the increase of the ions implanted into the lateral surface.