The design and application of electron cyclotron resonancedischarges

During the past ten years electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) plasma-processing technology has matured into a diverse assortment of ECR plasma reactor and plasma source design concepts and has been extensively applied to numerous low-pressure plasma processing applications. This paper reviews the substantial progress made in the design and application of ECR plasma technology in recent years. Five representative ECR reactor/source designs from large-area 450-cm² discharges to compact plasma sources inserted into molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE) machines are described in detail. The performance of these ECR devices is evaluated by computing performance figures of merit from the available experimental data. These calculations are then compared with the behavior as predicted from a global model of the discharge. This comparison suggests that global plasma models can be employed as an approximate method for ECR reactor design. More extensive diagnostics and numerical models that investigate the spatial variation of ion density and ion energy distributions are also presented. Several illustrative ECR plasma-processing applications are discussed. These include submicron etching of silicon, etching of III-V and II-VI electronic and photonic devices, and the epitaxial growth of GaN. The variety and the sophistication of these applications demonstrate that low-pressure high-density ECR plasma processing technology has evolved into a very useful, versatile group of plasma-processing machines     

An Experimental Study of Reactions of Co and H2 in a Continuous Flow Microwave Discharge Reactor

The reactions of CO/H2 mixtures in a flowing microwave (2450 MHz) reactor system have been studied experimentally. This versatile microwave plasma source catalyzes the reactions selectively to products, mainly methane and acetylene. For reaction times of 0.1 to 0.5 seconds in the pressure range of 10 to 90 torr conversions of CO to hydrocarbons ranged from 4 to 19%. Electric and magnetic field configurations in the reactor, i. e. various electromagnetic modes, appear to have only minor effects on the chemical reactions. It was observed that the conversion of CO to hydrocarbons is enhanced by high ratios of H2/CO. Based on analysis of experimental data, hydrogen radical production appears to be the controlling mechanism for producing both methane and acetylene.