Study of non-maxwellian electron energy distribution functions for an oxygen discharge

Summary form only given. The effect of the electron energy distribution function (EEDF) on high-density, low-pressure, oxygen discharges is investigated in this work. Some examples of the oxygen discharge applications are ashing of photoresist, removing polymer films and oxidation or deposition of thin film oxides. A global model for oxygen inductively coupled plasma (ICP) [1] was modified to include a general distribution function allowing the study of the plasma parameters as the EEDF is varied from being Maxwellian to become Druyvesteyn like. Plasma parameters namely electron density, electron temperature, plasma potential and electronegativity are discussed for different values of applied power and pressure for these two types of EEDFs. Moreover, our results are compared with argon ICP [2], thus the main differences between electropositive plasma and electronegative plasma were studied. When a Druyvesteyn EEDF is assumed, the number of high-energy electrons is fewer and the number of average-energy electrons is higher compared with an assumption of a Maxwellian EEDF. The electron density and the electronegativity decrease as the EEDF change from Maxwellian to Druyvesteyn.