Abstract:
Our study was carried out to a better understanding of the phenomena governing Rf glow discharge plasmas used for the deposition of amorphous silicon thin films by sputtering technique. The optical emission spectroscopy (OES) diagnostic technique allowed us to identify the different excited species present in the plasma and to study the influence of preparation conditions on their distributions in the space between electrodes. The transition
phenomena between α and γ regimes, as well as the multiplication by Penning effect, are observed.
A new tool to estimate the sputtering yield based on the rate of sputtered atom intensity to projectile atom is proposed. It allows us to estimate experimentally the contribution of the fast atom created from the symmetric charge transfer collision in the target sputtering process.
A physicochemical analysis shows the existence of a correlation between the three essential regions in the
reactor : target / plasma / substrate.
