Charge transfer in plasma processing

Summary form only given, as follows. Plasma processing is widely used to alter the properties of materials as well as to synthesize new materials. One such process is plasma polymerization. The elementary processes that occur during plasma polymerization of acetylene have been investigated and are reported here. Specifically, orthogonal-acceleration time-of-flight mass spectrometry as well as optical emission spectroscopy have been employed to detect ions and excited species, present in C/sub 2/H/sub 2//Ar and O/sub 2/ plasmas. Mass spectra, optical emission spectra, and ion kinetic energy distributions were obtained, and they showed a decrease in energetic (/spl sim/400eV) ion signal with increasing pressure and a change in the ion kinetic energy distributions. The results suggest that there are symmetric charge transfer processes within the plasma sheath. High energy neutral particles generated from such processes my have considerable influence in determining the properties of films grown by the plasma polymerization process.