Unintended gas breakdowns in narrow gaps of advanced plasma sources for semiconductor fabrication industry
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- Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), Princeton, NJ (United States); Princeton Univ., NJ (United States)
- Seoul National Univ. (Korea, Republic of)
- Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), Princeton, NJ (United States)
- Belle Mead, NJ (United States)
- Korea Aerospace University, Goyang (South Korea)
- Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Hwaseong (South Korea)
- Korea University, Sejong (South Korea)
Occurrence of unintended gas breakdown in the narrow gaps of plasma processing chambers is one of the critical challenges in developing advanced plasma sources. Here, we present a combined experimental and theoretical study of unintended discharges in the narrow gaps of plasma processing chambers and report significant drop of the gas breakdown voltage in the presence of a background plasma facing the gap. Experimentally measured breakdown voltages decrease in subsequent breakdown events due to wall erosion caused by the discharge. Therefore, preventing and mitigating the first discharge is of paramount importance. An analysis of kinetic simulation results indicates that the charged particle influx from the background plasma in the processing chamber into the gap is responsible for the onset of early breakdown: higher charged particle density within the gap modifies the electric field profile, allowing unintended breakdowns to occur at a significantly reduced threshold voltage.
- Research Organization:
- Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), Princeton, NJ (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Fusion Energy Sciences (FES); National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-09CH11466
- OSTI ID:
- 2248046
- Journal Information:
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 123, Issue 23; ISSN 0003-6951
- Publisher:
- American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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