Research on characteristics of the low pressure and low density e-beam plasma and its application to etching process

Abstract

Unlike conventional plasma sources, electron beam plasma which has its own interesting properties, has not been investigated much because its installation makes fabrication process harder. Therefore in this study, we investigate the general characteristics of electron beam plasma like electron density, temperature, bias voltage and breakdown voltage. And also, interesting phenomenon in electron beam plasma, self-oscillation, which is obtained by using a DC-only power supply with specific anode voltage conditions, is also investigated using the particle balance equation. After studying those general characteristics of the electron beam plasma, we investigate the conventional radio frequency plasma source combined with thermal electron beam. Electron beam generated plasma has differentiated properties comparing with conventional plasma sources. When conventional plasma source (for example, CCP) and electron beam are combined, those two sources are independent to each other so there is a big advantage to control the plasma parameters especially maximizing bias voltage for high ion energy. So we have investigated how to maximize the bias voltage by combining those two sources.