Application of the physics of plasma sheaths to the modeling of rf plasma reactors

Abstract
An equivalent circuit model is presented for a planar rf plasma reactor. The physical properties of the plasma sheath adjacent to the electrodes are incorporated in the model. The sheath capacitances and the conduction currents through the sheaths are time varying and have a highly nonlinear dependence on the potentials across the plasma sheaths. The model shows that the waveforms of the voltage differences across the sheaths are highly nonsinusoidal and agree with reported measurements.