Modeling and simulation of a large area plasma source

Summary form only given. A very large area, rf inductively driven plasma source using a variant of TCP/ICP without a magnetic field is designed and analyzed by modeling and a 2-D fluid simulation. As the dimension of the antenna coil of an rf-powered plasma system is increased to become comparable to the rf wavelength, the non-uniformity of the plasma source due to standing waves becomes an important obstacle to overcome. A novel TCP/ICP plasma source launching a traveling wave is being developed at UC Berkeley for processing a large flat area with relatively uniform plasma densities. The experimental design of the large area plasma source is presented along with simple modeling and initial experimental results. The simple modeling analysis for calculating the non-uniformity for a planar array of eight. The width is the separation between line sources and the depth is the distance between the planar array and the substrate. A 2-D fluid simulation code in Cartesian coordinates has been developed and used to simulate the plasma dynamics of generation and loss. The equations of continuity of electrons and ions along with electron energy balance and Poisson´s equation have been dynamically followed to reveal the steady profiles of the densities of electrons and ions and the electron temperature with self-consistent potential. The simulation results show that the electron temperature becomes more uniform than the plasma potential and the electron density.