Energy transfer from radio frequency sheath accelerated CF+3 and Ar+ ions to a Si wafer

Abstract

The thermal energy flux which a rf plasma delivers to a silicon surface has been studied by a calorimetric method. The energy flux appears to be proportional to the product of the average ion energy and the ion flux, which was calculated from the Bohm criterion using measured plasma parameters. Furthermore, the value and energy dependence of the kinetic energy transfer efficiency (about 0.5) suggests that the microscopic interaction of impinging ions in the eV range with a silicon surface can be described by a binary collision model.