The electrical asymmetry effect in electronegative CF4 capacitive RF plasmas operated in the striation mode


Wang X.-K. Masheyeva R. Liu Y.-X. Hartmann P. Schulze J. Donkó Z.
August 2023Institute of Physics

Plasma Sources Science and Technology
2023#32Issue 8

The Electrical Asymmetry Effect (EAE) provides control of the mean ion energy at the electrodes of multi-frequency capacitively coupled radio frequency plasmas (CCP) by tuning the DC self-bias via adjusting the relative phase(s) between the consecutive driving harmonics. Depending on the electron power absorption mode, this phase control affects the ion flux in different ways. While it provides separate control of the mean ion energy and flux in the α-mode, limitations were found in the γ- and Drift-Ambipolar modes. In this work, based on experiments as well as kinetic simulations, the EAE is investigated in the striation-mode, which is present in electronegative CCPs driven by low frequencies. The discharge is operated in CF4 and is driven by two consecutive harmonics (4/8 MHz). The simulation results are validated against measurements of the DC self-bias and the spatio-temporally resolved dynamics of energetic electrons. To include heavy particle induced secondary electron emission realistically, a new computationally assisted diagnostic is developed to determine the corresponding secondary electron emission coefficient from a comparison of the DC self-bias obtained experimentally and from the simulations. Based on the validated simulation results, the EAE is found to provide separate control of the mean ion energy and flux in the striation mode, while the axial charged particle density profiles and the number of striations change as a function of the relative phase. This is understood based on an analysis of the ionization dynamics.

capacitively coupled plasma , electrical asymmetry effect , experimental plasma diagnostics , particle in cell simulation , striations

Text of the article Перейти на текст статьи

Key Laboratory of Materials Modification by Laser, Ion, and Electron Beams (Ministry of Education), School of Physics, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, 116024, China
Chair of Applied Electrodynamics and Plasma Technology, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Sciences, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, 44801, Germany
Institute for Solid State Physics and Optics, Wigner Research Centre for Physics, Budapest, 1121, Hungary
Research Institute of Experimental and Theoretical Physics, Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Almaty, 050040, Kazakhstan

Key Laboratory of Materials Modification by Laser
Chair of Applied Electrodynamics and Plasma Technology
Institute for Solid State Physics and Optics
Research Institute of Experimental and Theoretical Physics

10 лет помогаем публиковать статьи Международный издатель

Книга Публикация научной статьи Волощук 2026 Book Publication of a scientific article 2026