| Microwave cavity plasma reactors are being used for a range of materials processing applications including the deposition of diamond thin films and the etching/surface treatment of semiconductor materials during device fabrication. For all these microwave plasma processes a concise understanding of the plasma species concentration and energies are often still lacking. The plasma parameters like gas temperature and species concentration, H, C{dollar}sb2{dollar} and CH, for some of the commonly used plasmas for diamond thin film deposition, namely H{dollar}sb2{dollar} - CH{dollar}sb4{dollar} and Ar - H{dollar}sb2{dollar} - CH{dollar}sb4{dollar} were analyzed using optical emission spectroscopy.; The addition of small amounts of N{dollar}sb2{dollar} has been shown to affect the deposition rate and characteristics of the diamond film. Hence the effect of nitrogen on these plasmas was also studied. With the 0.1-1% addition of nitrogen no change in the gas temperature was observed. However an increase in the amount of atomic hydrogen was observed with nitrogen concentration.; The density of high energy electrons in a compact ion source was also analyzed. This was achieved by observing the doubly ionized argon emission lines. The results indicate the presence of high energy electrons (greater than 27eV) in the plasma of a compact ion source. |
