Effect of electron energy distributions on the electron density in nitrogen inductively coupled plasmas

Abstract The effect of the electron energy distribution function (EEDF) on the behavior of the electron density ( n e ) is investigated under various gas pressures of nitrogen (N 2 ) in inductively coupled plasma (ICP) operated at low and high input powers. A Langmuir probe is used to measure the EEDFs and electron densities, and the antenna coil current is measured to obtain the absorbed power in the plasma ( P abs ). At gas pressures above 2.67 Pa (20 mTorr) and 2500 W, P abs increases continually with increasing the gas pressure, but the electron density slightly decreases. In this case, the EEDF has a Maxwellian distribution with a high-energy tail. On the other hand, at 300 W, P abs decreases slightly with increasing gas pressure, but the electron density dramatically decreases, and the EEDF evolves from a bi-Maxwellian to a non-Maxwellian distribution with substantially highly depleted high-energetic part (high-energy tail). To analyze the difference in the behavior of the decrease rate in electron density, the total energy loss per electron–ion pair lost ( ε T ) is measured through the probe diagnostics, and the measured electron density is compared with the calculated electron density from the global model. An additional experiment is performed in Ar plasma under the same discharge conditions as N 2 plasma to compare the EEDF effect. This study provides experimental evidence that the EEDF has a decisive effect on the behavior of the electron density in plasmas.