Abstract: Vibrational excitation represents an efficient channel to drive the dissociation of CO₂in a non-thermal plasma. Its viability is investigated in low-pressure pulsed discharges, with the intention of selectively exciting the asymmetric stretching mode, leading to stepwise excitation up to the dissociation limit of the molecule. Gas heating is crucial for the attainability of this process, since the efficiency of vibration–translation (V–T) relaxation strongly depends on temperature, creating a feedback mechanism that can ultimately thermalize the discharge. Indeed, recent experiments demonstrated that the timeframe of V–T non-equilibrium is limited to a few milliseconds at ca. 6 mbar, and shrinks to the<italic>μ</italic>s-scale at 100 mbar. With the aim of backtracking the origin of gas heating in pure CO₂plasma, we perform a kinetic study to describe the energy transfers under typical non-thermal plasma conditions. The validation of our kinetic scheme with pulsed glow discharge experiments enables to depict the gas heating dynamics. In particular, we pinpoint the role of vibration–vibration–translation relaxation in redistributing the energy from asymmetric to symmetric levels of CO₂, and the importance of collisional quenching of CO₂electronic states in triggering the heating feedback mechanism in the sub-millisecond scale. This latter finding represents a novelty for the modelling of low-pressure pulsed discharges and we suggest that more attention should be paid to it in future studies. Additionally, O atoms convert vibrational energy into heat, speeding up the feedback loop. The efficiency of these heating pathways, even at relatively low gas temperature and pressure, underpins the lifetime of V–T non-equilibrium and suggests a redefinition of the optimal conditions to exploit the ‘ladder-climbing’ mechanism in CO₂discharges.

Abstract: We investigate discharge contraction in a microwave plasma at sub-atmospheric pressure, operating in CO2 and CO2/CH4 mixtures. The rise of the electron number density with plasma contraction intensifies the gas heating in the core of the plasma. This, in turn, initiates fast core-periphery transport and defines the rate of thermal chemistry over plasma chemistry. In this context, power concentration describes the overall mechanism including plasma contraction and chemical kinetics. In a complex chemistry such as dry reforming of methane, transport of reactive species is essential to define the performance of the reactor and achieve the desired outputs. Thus, we couple experimental observations and thermodynamic calculations for model validation and understanding of reactor performance. Adding CH4 alters the thermodynamic properties of the mixture, especially the reactive component of the heat conductivity. The increase in reactive heat conductivity increases the pressure at which plasma contraction occurs, because higher rates of gas heating are required to reach the same temperature. In addition, we suggest that the predominance of heat conduction over convection is a key condition to observe the effect of heat conductivity on gas temperature.

Abstract: Since the onset of pattern transfer technologies for chip manufacturing, various strategies have been developed to circumvent or overcome aspect ratio dependent etching (ARDE). These methods have, however, their own limitations in terms of etch non-idealities, throughput or costs. Moreover, they have mainly been optimized for individual in-device features and die-scale patterns, while occasionally ending up with poor patterning of metrology marks, affecting the alignment and overlay in lithography. Obtaining a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms of ARDE and how to mitigate them therefore remains a relevant challenge to date, for both marks and advanced nodes. In this work, we accordingly assessed the neutral transport mechanisms in ARDE by means of experiments and multiscale modeling for SiO₂etching with CHF₃/Ar and CF₄/Ar plasmas. The experiments revealed a local maximum in the etch rate for an aspect ratio around unity, i.e. the simultaneous occurrence of regular and inverse reactive ion etching lag for a given etch condition. We were able to reproduce this ARDE trend in the simulations without taking into account charging effects and the polymer layer thickness, suggesting shadowing and diffuse reflection of neutrals as the primary underlying mechanisms. Subsequently, we explored four methods with the simulations to regulate ARDE, by varying the incident plasma species fluxes, the amount of polymer deposition, the ion energy and angular distribution and the initial hardmask sidewall angle, for which the latter was found to be promising in particular. Although our study focusses on feature dimensions characteristic to metrology marks and back-end-of-the-line integration, the obtained insights have a broader relevance, e.g. to the patterning of advanced nodes. Additionally, this work supports the insight that physisorption may be more important in plasma etching at room temperature than originally thought, in line with other recent studies, a topic on which we recommend further research.

Abstract: We have developed a comprehensive kinetic model to study the O atom kinetics in an O₂plasma and its afterglow. By adopting a pseudo-1D plug-flow formalism within the kinetic model, our aim is to assess how far the O atoms travel in the plasma afterglow, evaluating its potential as a source of O atoms for post-plasma gas conversion applications. Since we could not find experimental data for pure O₂plasma at atmospheric pressure, we first validated our model at low pressure (1–10 Torr) where very good experimental data are available. Good agreement between our model and experiments was achieved for the reduced electric field, gas temperature and the densities of the dominant neutral species, i.e. O₂(a), O₂(b) and O. Subsequently, we confirmed that the chemistry set is consistent with thermodynamic equilibrium calculations at atmospheric pressure. Finally, we investigated the O atom densities in the O₂plasma and its afterglow, for which we considered a microwave O₂plasma torch, operating at a pressure between 0.1 and 1 atm, for a flow rate of 20 slm and an specific energy input of 1656 kJ mol⁻¹. Our results show that for both pressure conditions, a high dissociation degree of ca. 92% is reached within the discharge. However, the O atoms travel much further in the plasma afterglow for<italic>p</italic>= 0.1 atm (9.7 cm) than for<italic>p</italic>= 1 atm (1.4 cm), attributed to the longer lifetime (3.8 ms at 0.1 atm vs 1.8 ms at 1 atm) resulting from slower three-body recombination kinetics, as well as a higher volumetric flow rate.

Abstract: We present a method for area selective deposition of 2D WS2 nanoribbons with tunable thickness on a dielectric substrate. The process is based on a complete conversion of a prepatterned, H-terminated Si layer to metallic W by WF6, followed by in situ sulfidation by H2S. The reaction process, performed at 450 degrees C, yields nanoribbons with lateral dimension down to 20 nm and with random basal plane orientation. The thickness of the nanoribbons is accurately controlled by the thickness of the pre-deposited Si layer. Upon rapid thermal annealing at 900 degrees C under inert gas, the WS2 basal planes align parallel to the substrate.

Abstract: We present an ab initio study of the electronic structure and of the formation energies of various point defects in BaSnO3 and SrGeO3. We show that La and Y impurities substituting Ba or Sr are shallow donors with a preferred 1 + charge state. These defects have a low formation energy within all the suitable equilibrium growth conditions considered. Oxygen vacancies behave as shallow donors as well, preferring the 2 + charge state. Their formation energies, however, are higher in most growth conditions, indicating a limited contribution to conductivity. The calculated electron effective mass in BaSnO3, with a value of 0.21 me, and the very high mobility reported recently in La-doped BaSnO3 single-crystals, suggest that remarkably low scattering rates can be achieved in the latter. In the case of SrGeO3, our results point to carrier density and mobility values in the low range for typical polycrystalline TCOs, in line with experiment.

Abstract: Based on the existing experimental data and their statistical errors, it is not possible to make a sound recommendation of the cross-section set of Campbell et al (J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 34 (2001) 1185). We comment on this paper.

Abstract: Organic carbocyanine dye coatings have been analyzed by time-of-flight static secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-S-SIMS) using three types of primary ions: Ga+ operating at 25 keV, and Xe+ and SF5+ both operating at 9 keV. Secondary ion yields obtained with these three primary ions have been compared for coatings with different layer thickness, varying from (sub)-monolayer to multilayers, on different substrates (Si, Ag and AgBr cubic microcrystals). For (sub)-monolayers deposited on Ag, Xe+ and SF5+ primary ions generate similar precursor ion intensities, but with Ga+ slightly lower precursor ion intensities were obtained. Thick coatings on Ag as well as mono- and multilayers on Si produce the highest precursor and fragment ion intensities with the polyatomic primary ion. The yield difference between SF5+ and Xe+ can reach a factor of 6. In comparison with Ga+, yield enhancements by up to a factor of 180 are observed with SF5+. For the mass spectrometric analysis of dye layers on AgBr microcrystals, SF5+ again proves to be the primary ion of choice. Copyright (C) 2004 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.

Abstract: The reaction behavior of species that may affect the growth of ultrananocrystal line and nanocrystalline diamond ((U)NCD) films is investigated by means of molecular dynamics simulations. Impacts of CHx (x = 0 – 4), C2Hx (x=0-6), C3Hx (x=0-2), C4Hx (x = 0 – 2), H, and H-2 on clean and hydrogenated diamond (100)2 x 1 and (111) 1 x 1 surfaces at two different substrate temperatures are simulated. We find that the different bonding structures of the two surfaces cause different temperature effects on the sticking efficiency. These results predict a temperature-dependent ratio of diamond (100) and (111) growth. Furthermore, predictions of which are the most important hydrocarbon species for (U)NCD growth are made.

Abstract: The He-Ar-Cu+ IR laser operates in a hollow-cathode discharge, typically in a mixture of helium with a few-% Ar. The population inversion of the Cu+ ion levels, responsible for laser action, is attributed to asymmetric charge transfer between He+ ions and sputtered Cu atoms. The Ar gas is added to promote sputtering of the Cu cathode. In this paper, a hybrid modeling network consisting of several different models for the various plasma species present in a He-Ar-Cu hollow-cathode discharge is applied to investigate the effect of Ar concentration in the gas mixture on the discharge behavior, and to find the optimum He/Ar gas ratio for laser operation. It is found that the densities of electrons, Ar+ ions, Ar-m* metastable atoms, sputtered Cu atoms and Cu+ ions increase upon the addition of more Ar gas, whereas the densities of He+ ions, He-2(+) ions and He-m* metastable atoms drop considerably. The product of the calculated Cu atom and He+ ion densities, which determines the production rate of the upper laser levels, and hence probably also the laser output power, is found to reach a maximum around 1-5% Ar addition. This calculation result is compared to experimental measurements, and reasonable agreement has been reached.