Ion energy and angular distributions in inductively coupled radio frequency discharges in argon

We report measurements of the energies and angular distributions of positive ions in an inductively coupled argon plasma in a Gaseous Electronics Conference Reference Cell. Use of two separate ion detectors allowed measurement of ion energies and fluxes as a function of position as well as ion angular distributions on the discharge centerline. The inductive drive on our system produced high plasma densities (up to 1012/cm3 electron densities) and relatively stable plasma potentials. As a result, ion energy distributions typically consisted of a single feature well separated from zero energy. Mean ion energy was independent of rf power and varied inversely with pressure, decreasing from 29 to 12 eV as pressure increased from 2.4 to 50 mTorr. The half‐widths of the ion angular distributions in these experiments varied from 5° to 9°, or equivalently, the transverse temperatures varied from 0.18 to 0.29 eV with the distributions broadening as either pressure or rf power was increased.

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