Improvement of uniformity in a weakly magnetized inductively coupled plasma

Magnetic fields are applied to inductively coupled plasma (ICP) to achieve high plasma densities using electromagnets. If the magnetic fields are set up such that the magnitude of magnetic flux density on the substrate decreases with both radial and axial distances from the substrate's center (here after referred to as M-ICP-A), the plasma density increases by 237% compared with that for ICP although the non-uniformity of the plasma density for M-ICP-A (11.1%) is higher than that for ICP (10.9%). As the rate of decrease in the magnitude of magnetic flux density on the substrate increases both radially and axially, the non-uniformity in the plasma density increases further. The increase in the non-uniformity for M-ICP-A was confirmed to arise from the flute instability. To suppress the flute instability, we arranged the magnitude of magnetic flux density on the substrate to increase with increasing distance from the substrate center both radially and axially (here after referred to as M-ICP-V). In this configuration, plasma fluctuations were not observed, hence the plasma density non-uniformity was lowered to 8.1%, although the measured plasma density was higher than that for M-ICP-A. The oxide etch-rate non-uniformity in M-ICP-V (2.5%) was also lower than that for ICP (5.2%) or that for M-ICP-A (21.4%).