Simulation of a Dually Excited Capacitively Coupled RF Plasma

In plasma processing reactors, it is common practice to control plasma density and ion bombardment energy by manipulating excitation voltage and frequency. In this paper, a dually excited capacitively coupled rf plasma reactor is self-consistently simulated with a three moment model. Effects of phase differences between primary and secondary voltage waves, simultaneously modulated at various combination of commensurate frequencies, on plasma properties are investigated. The simulation results show that plasma potential and density as well as primary self-dc bias are nearly unaffected by the phase lag between the primary and the secondary voltage waves. The results also show that, with the secondary frequency substantially lower than the primary frequency, secondary self-dc bias remains constant regardless of the phase lag. As the secondary frequency approaches to the primary frequency, however, the secondary self-dc bias becomes greatly altered by the phase lag, and so does the ion bombardment energy at the secondary electrode. These results demonstrate that ion bombardment energy can be more carefully controlled through plasma simulation.