Abstract
Current dry etching systems use glow discharges with gas pressures ranging typically from 0.5 to 500 Pa. Electrical power supply is by ac only, with frequencies of 50 kHz and up. High-frequency excitation is applied as it takes out the necessity to draw direct current through the system. This allows for the use of non-conducting substrates and electrodes. In many cases, interactions at or near the wafer surface, such as ion bombardment, play an important role. Hence, a large part of the following text is dedicated to the space charge regions (“sheaths”) formed between the plasma and the surrounding surfaces.
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© 1991 Springer Science+Business Media New York
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van Roosmalen, A.J., Baggerman, J.A.G., Brader, S.J.H. (1991). The ac Discharge. In: Dry Etching for VLSI. Updates in Applied Physics and Electrical Technology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-2566-4_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-2566-4_3
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4899-2568-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-4899-2566-4
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