Observation of pressure gradient and related flow rate effect on the plasma parameters in plasma processing reactor

In industrial plasma processes, flow rate has been known to a key to control plasma processing results and has been discussed with reactive radical density, gas residence time, and surface reaction. In this study, it was observed that the increase in the flow rate can also change plasma parameters (electron temperature and plasma density) and electron energy distribution function in plasma processing reactor. Based on the measurement of gas pressure between the discharge region and the pumping port region, the considerable differences in the gas pressure between the two regions were found with increasing flow rate. It was also observed that even in the discharge region, the pressure gradient occurs at the high gas flow rate. This result shows that increasing the flow rate results in the pressure gradient and causes the changes in the plasma parameters. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3546011]