Modeling of ions energy distribution profile of electronegative plasma discharges with an efficient Monte Carlo simulator

Abstract

The crucial role that Ions Energy Distribution Function (IEDF) at the electrodes plays in plasma processing of semiconductor materials demands that this quantity be predicted with high accuracy and with low noise levels in any plasma simulator. In this work, an efficient Particle-in-cell/Monte-Carlo (PIC/MC) simulator is developed to model IEDF at the electrodes of electronegative plasma discharges. The simulator uses an effective method to increase the number of MC particles in regions of low particle density by splitting the particles and by adjusting their statistical weight. This statistical enhancement technique, which does not require interprocessor communication, is particularly suitable for parallel processing. The simulator is used to model an electronegative rf discharge at a pressure of 25 mTorr. The IEDF obtained from this simulator has good statistics with low noise levels, whereas the IEDF calculated by standard PIC/MC simulator is jammed with stochastic noise.