Modeling and simulation of ion-filtered inductively coupled plasma using argon plasma

An ion-filtered inductively coupled plasma (IF-ICP) is proposed to reduce ion bombardment and provide high metastable species density for chemical vapor deposition. Argon plasma, which has simple reaction mechanism, is simulated to show the effects of ion filter. Compared to typical ICP, the maximum density of ions of IF-ICP is lower while that of metastable species is higher. The filter can absorb ions effectively and relatively small amount of metastable species, with the absorption coefficient proportional to its surface area. A proper gap between filter and substrate can achieve more metastable species and less ions on the substrate. The pressure and RF power need to be optimized based on the tradeoff between deposition rate and ion damage. The density of ions on the substrate can be reduced by two orders of magnitude while that of metastable species are maintained in the order of 1017 m−3 under the optimized conditions.