Controlling VUV photon fluxes in low-pressure inductively coupled plasmas

Low-pressure (a few to hundreds of millitorrs) inductively coupled plasmas (ICPs), as typically used in microelectronics fabrication, often produce vacuum-ultraviolet (VUV) photon fluxes onto surfaces comparable to or exceeding the magnitude of ion fluxes. These VUV photon fluxes are desirable in applications such as sterilization of medical equipment but are unwanted in many materials fabrication processes due to damage to the devices by the high-energy photons. Under specific conditions, VUV fluxes may stimulate etching or synergistically combine with ion fluxes to modify polymeric materials. In this regard, it is desirable to control the magnitude of VUV fluxes or the ratio of VUV fluxes to those of other reactive species, such as ions, or to discretely control the VUV spectrum. In this paper, we discuss results from a computational investigation of VUV fluxes from low-pressure ICPs sustained in rare gas mixtures. The control of VUV fluxes through the use of pressure, pulsed power, and gas mixture is discussed. We found that the ratio, β, of VUV photon to ion fluxes onto surfaces generally increases with increasing pressure. When using pulsed plasmas, the instantaneous value of β can vary by a factor of 4 or more during the pulse cycle due to the VUV flux more closely following the pulsed power.