Study of Plasma Characteristics Using Tailored Pulse DC Bias

In recent years, the semiconductor industry has demanded increasingly complex and precise fabrication processes to enable the production of smaller and more efficient devices at the atomic scale. As a result, fine control over plasma processes has become a critical factor in device manufacturing [1]. Because plasma etching and deposition rely on both physical and chemical interactions of energetic ions with the substrate, achieving a narrow ion energy distribution (IED) is essential for high process precision. Since ion energy is directly influenced by the bias voltage applied to the substrate electrode, fine control of this bias voltage is key to improving plasma processing accuracy.

Tailored pulse DC waveform-based plasma processing has gained attention as a promising method to produce narrow and monoenergetic IEDs [2–4]. In this study, we investigate the characteristics of plasma under various tailored pulse DC bias waveforms applied to the substrate in an inductively coupled plasma (ICP) reactor. Plasma parameters, including ion energy distributions, were measured and analyzed to understand the effect of waveform shape on energy control.

The results suggest that tailored pulse DC biasing provides a viable route to engineer ion energy distributions with greater precision. These findings are expected to contribute to the development of customized pulse waveform design and advanced plasma processing strategies for next-generation semiconductor fabrication.

[1] Clark R. et al., APL Mater., 2018, 6, 058203.

[2] Wang S. B. and Wendt A. E., J. Appl. Phys., 2000, 88, 643–646.

[3] Faraz T. et al., J. Appl. Phys., 2020, 128, 213301.

[4] Yu Q. et al., Plasma Sources Sci. Technol., 2022, 31, 035012.