Charged particle densities and kinetics in a radio-frequency SF6 plasma

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Abstract
Electron, negative ion, and positive ion densities in a capacitively‐coupled radio‐frequency (rf, 13.56 MHz) SF6 plasma have been investigated as functions of the pressure (30–700 mTorr) and rf power. The decay of the charged particle densities in the afterglow has also been studied to obtain information about their kinetics. The electron density was determined by using a microwave cavity resonance technique. Negative ions were detected by measuring the density of photodetached electrons produced by pulsed laser irradiation of the plasma. The positive ion density was obtained from Langmuir probe measurements. At a rf power of 0.13 W/cm2 and at low pressures (≲100 mTorr) the positive ion density, which is virtually equal to the negative ion density, is found to be larger than the electron density by a factor of a few hundred; the ion/electron density ratio increases with increasing pressure to reach a value of a few thousand at high pressures. Wavelength‐dependent photodetachment measurements indicate that the dominant contribution to the photodetachment signal at 266 nm comes from F−, but F− is a minor negative‐ion species with respect to the density; that is, the photodetachment efficiency for the dominant negative ion species (supposed to be SF−5) is low. The recombination rate constant for F− (supposedly with SF+5) is suggested to be an order of magnitude larger than that for the dominant ion species, the latter being estimated to be slightly smaller than 10−7 cm3 s−1.