Submicron diameter particles were grown and observed in an rf plasma while etching silicon. The plasma, created by an rf discharge in argon-CF2Cl2 mixtures in a parallel plate geometry, was probed by light from a pulsed dye laser. The scattered laser light provided a measure of the size and space distribution of the particles. The particles were observed to be spatially distributed, reaching a peak density just outside the plasma-sheath boundary. Particle size distributions, determined from the pulse-height spectrum of the scattered light intensity, were estimated to peak at radii of less than one micron.

Date Published: 30 January 1990
PDF: 7 pages
Proc. SPIE 1185, Dry Processing for Submicrometer Lithography, (30 January 1990); doi: 10.1117/12.978057

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 1185:
Dry Processing for Submicrometer Lithography
James A. Bondur; Alan R. Reinberg, Editor(s)