Vacuum xxx (2010) 1e5

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Vacuum
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Optimization of ion energy spread in inductively coupled plasma source

designed for focused ion beam applications
P.Y. Nabhiraj a, *, Ranjini Menon a, G. Mohan Rao b, S. Mohan b, R.K. Bhandari a
a
Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre, Sector-1, Block-AF, Bidhan Nagar, Kolkata-700064, India
b
Department of Instrumentation, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore-560012, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The ion energy distribution of inductively coupled plasma ion source for focused ion beam application is
Received 9 April 2010 measured using a four grid retarding field energy analyzer. Without using any Faraday shield, ion energy
Received in revised form spread is found to be 50 eV or more. Moreover, the ion energy distribution is found to have double peaks
19 July 2010
showing that the power coupling to the plasma is not purely inductive, but a strong parasitic capacitive
Accepted 19 July 2010
coupling is also present. By optimizing the various source parameters and Faraday shield, ion energy
distribution having a single peak, well separated from zero energy and with ion energy spread of 4 eV is
Keywords:
achieved. A novel plasma chamber, with proper Faraday shield is designed to ignite the plasma at low RF
Inductively coupled plasma
Ion energy spread
powers which otherwise would require 300e400 W of RF power. Optimization of various parameters of
Retarding field energy analyzer the ion source to achieve ions with very low energy spread and the experimental results are presented in
Faraday shield this article.
Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Plasma based focused ion beam systems are gaining importance
due to their flexibility in producing ion beams of different elements
including reactive gases and the capability to produce high angular
current densities [1]. However these broad sources need to be
carefully optimized for producing finely focused ion beam. The
energy spread (DE) is one of the important parameters for
achieving finely focused ion beam as it contributes to the broad-
ening of final ion beam spot due to chromatic aberrations [2].
Among the high density plasma based RF ion sources, Inductively
Coupled Plasma (ICP) sources have inherent characteristics to
produce plasma with low plasma potentials and ion beams with
less energy spreads. However there is a significant scope to further
minimize the energy spread by using various techniques. Several
works are reported on the techniques such as using magnetic filters
at the extraction region [3], using pushepull coil configuration
where centre of the coil is grounded [4], using Faraday shield etc. to
reduce the ion energy spread in large size ion sources. Ion source
described in this article, whose size being very small, there is
a space constraint to employ the magnetic filters at the extraction
region. The Antenna size is also small and has only 5 turns offering
very low inductance and resistance, so that it is impractical to use
pushepull coil configuration. Other parameters such as Faraday
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: npy@vecc.gov.in (P.Y. Nabhiraj).
shielding, RF power (Prf), gas pressure (P) and coil orientation that
can control the ion energy spread and mean energy which can
easily be implemented on such small size ion sources are studied. A
new plasma chamber has been implemented to overcome the
difficulties in ignition of plasma in the presence of a Faraday shield
and at the same time higher plasma density could be achieved at
lower RF powers. In this article, we present these techniques and
their effect on the energy spread and mean energy of the ions,
experimental arrangements and the results.
2. Experimental set up
2.1. Inductive coupled plasma source
The experimental apparatus consists of two configurations of
ICP ion sources and a planar four grid retarding field energy
analyzer (RFEA). In both configurations, ion source operating at
13.56 MHz is in the most basic form and do not use any plasma
confining magnetic fields. Fig. 1(a) shows the schematic of
conventional ICP configuration and Fig. 1(b) shows the new
configuration where a quartz plasma chamber is divided into two
volumes with a small aperture connecting both the chambers. In
both the cases, the plasma chamber is made of quartz tube of
30 mm diameter and 100 mm length. Faraday shield made from
a vertically slotted thin copper foil is assembled around the plasma
chamber and is grounded through 10 nF high voltage capacitor. It
has an external 5 turn helical antenna which is powered by

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Fig. 1. Schematic drawing of ICP ion source with RFEA. C1 and C2 e impedance matching capacitors. I e Teflon insulator for isolation between stainless steel flange F and grounded
vacuum chamber. Faraday shield and F are ground through the capacitor C for bypassing the RF voltages. The upper flange of the plasma chamber with gas inlet port is floating. 1(a)
conventional configuration. 1(b) Quartz tube with double chamber.

a Dressler make RF generator through an inverted L type imped-
ance matching network. Since this ion source is being developed
for generating focused ion beams, for ion optics considerations,
ions in the extraction region are important rather than ions in the
bulk of the plasma and hence four grid RFEA is placed in the ion
extraction region for measuring the energy distribution of those
ions. All the experimental investigations are carried out with
argon plasma.
work by C L. Enloe et al. [7]. Only those ions which have energy to
overcome the voltage applied to the retarding grid shall pass
through the grids and reach the collector. The dependency of
collector current with retarding voltage represents the integral of
ion energy distribution (IED) and full width half maximum
(FWHM) of the IED gives the energy spread. The IED, f (vz), can be
written as:

2.2. Retarding field energy analyzer G1 G2 G3 G4 C

Retarding field energy analysers are widely used for plasma
and ion beam diagnostics [5]. The RFEA utilized in the following
experimental investigations is designed based on the work of C.
Bohm et al.,[6] schematic of which is shown in Fig. 2. The RFEA
consists of four grids and a collector plate, all arranged parallel to
Plasma

each other. Though difficult, efforts were made to align the wires
in the grid electrodes as much parallel as possible to each other
using a microscope in order to minimize the experimental errors.
The first grid G1 is connected to a stainless steel electrode having
an aperture of 2 mm diameter and the plasma to be analyzed is
sampled through this. This arrangement minimizes the possi-
bility of perturbation of plasma boundary due to the electric field
present in the energy analyzer which otherwise would cause
divergence in the ion trajectories resulting in error in the
measured energy spread. A negatively biased second grid, G2 is
used for preventing the electrons in the plasma reaching the Vr
collector. Third grid, G3 is retarding grid to which a variable +V
voltage power supply is connected. Fourth grid, G4 is for sup-
pressing the secondary electrons from the collector plate C,
Vp
where C is connected to a Keithley pico-ammeter for ion current 0
measurements.
Grids are made of stainless steel mesh of 0.08 mm diameter
wires providing a transparency of 66% to ions. All the grids are -V
insulated by 1 mm thick Teflon insulators. The energy resolution
of this type of analyzer depends mainly on the lens effect caused
by the apertures in the grids and for the present set up it is Fig. 2. Schematic of RFEA with potential distribution along the axis of RFEA. Vp is the
calculated to be 0.8% of the mean beam energy according to the plasma potential and Vr is the retarding potential.

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AM dIðVr Þ
fðvz Þ ¼ 2 i 
e dVr
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
where vz ¼ 2eVr =Mi , Mi is the mass of ion, e is the elemental
charge, A is a constant obtained from the transparency of the grid
and Vr is the retarding potential and I is the current reaching the
collector at Vr [6].
3. Experimental results and discussion
Ideally, the fundamental limit to ion energy spread in the
plasma is Te/2 which is solely due to presheath potential gradient
[8]. In case of ICP, Te is around 2e5 eV and hence minimum
achievable energy spread is less than 2.5 eV. However, in most ICP
sources, ion energy is different from ideal case and the observed
large energy anomalies are due to the modulation of plasma
potential by electrons that come under the influence of strong RF
electric fields that exist between the plasma and the electrode or
between the plasma and the walls [9]. Anomalies such as double
peaks in IED, with one of the peaks towards the lower energy
caused by thermalization of ions have been observed by Rainer
Hippler et al. [10]. Apart from capacitive coupling of RF power, there
is also a phenomena called as double layer formation [11] causing
the generation of higher population of energetic ions. However, in
both works of Rainer Hippler and C Charles the plasma under
consideration was magnetized where ion energy distribution can
be different from the unmagnetized plasma studied in this article.
In case of insulating plasma chambers, such as quartz tube or
ceramic chambers, there exists a finite capacitance between the
external helical antenna and plasma inside the chamber. Large RF
voltages appearing across the antenna couple to plasma capaci-
tively. By employing a Faraday shield made of vertically slotted thin
copper foil, between plasma chamber and the antenna, capacitive
coupling of high RF voltages from antenna to plasma is minimized.
However, by using Faraday shield of transparency less than 20%, it
became increasingly difficult to initiate the discharge. With this
arrangement, to initiate the discharge, it was required to operate
the ion source with more than 350 W of RF power and at high gas
pressure. After striking the initial discharge and before making any
measurements, the applied power was reduced and impedance
matching unit was readjusted to achieve almost zero reflected
power. Power densities in the plasma chamber are of the order of
1e4 W/cm3 which are reasonable to produce sufficiently high ion
current densities from the ion source.
It is important to have as low RF voltages as possible on the
antenna end that is towards the ion beam extraction electrode so
that parasitic coupling of RF power is minimized at that region. To
study the effect of direction of an antenna, initially experiments
were carried out without the use of Faraday shield and IEDs were
obtained with grounded end of antenna away from extraction in
one case and vice versa in second case as described in Fig. 3a and
Fig. 3b. By placing the grounded end towards extraction electrodes
the ion energy spread reduced from 59 to 52 eV while the mean
energy (Emean) reduced from 81 to 63 eV. This improvement is due
to the presence of lower RF voltage present at the ground end as
compared to the voltages present at the other end of the antenna.
This shows that the minimization of capacitively coupled energy
near the extraction region is more effective than that of the bulk of
the plasma away from extraction region and also it is evident that
the high voltage end of the antenna capacitively couples more
energy to plasma making the IED non-uniform throughout the bulk
of the plasma along the axis. Same experiments were repeated with
the use of Faraday shield with 80% transparency and results show
a drastic reduction in mean energy and energy spread. Fig. 3c shows
mean energy of 43 eV and energy spread of 10.5 eV with the ground
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3
1.0 d
0.5
0.0
1.0
c
0.5
Normalized IED
0.0
1.0
b
0.5
0.0
1.0
a
0.5
0.0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160
Retarding Voltage (V)
Fig. 3. IED obtained at different antenna configurations, Prf ¼ 50 W, P ¼ 0.01 mbar. WF:
with Faraday shield, WOF: without Faraday shield, GE: antenna ground towards
extraction, GA: antenna ground away from extraction. a) WOF & GE, DE ¼ 59 eV,
Emean ¼ 81 eV. b) WOF & GA, DE ¼ 52 eV, Emean ¼ 63 eV. c) WF & GE, DE ¼ 10.5 eV,
Emean ¼ 43 eV. d) WF & GA, DE ¼ 8.5 eV, Emean ¼ 41 eV.
of the antenna away from the extraction system whereas Fig. 3d
shows mean energy of 41 eV and energy spread of 8.5 eV after
reversing the antenna. All the distributions are obtained at 50 W of
RF power and with argon gas pressure of 0.01 mbar. It is very clear
from the distributions shown in Fig. 3 that without the use of
Faraday shield there is significant capacitive coupling of RF power
to plasma inducing large fluctuations in the plasma sheath. These
fluctuations in the sheath accelerate ions as well as electrons
thereby increasing the mean energy and energy spread. Multiple
peaks of Fig. 3a and b are indicative of a strong capacitive coupling.
Though small, similar multiple peaks are seen in Fig. 3c and
d suggesting insufficient Faraday shielding. Another consequence
of large capacitive coupling of RF power is that, ions with large
energies sputter the electrodes causing deposition of thin metallic
layer on the inner surface of plasma chamber. This thin metallic film
completely shields the coupling of RF voltages that are required for
initiation of plasma and makes it impossible to strike the discharge.
It is seen in our initial experiments that with the existence of large
capacitive coupling of RF power, ion source life was never more
than 5 to 6 h.
In an effort to reduce the capacitive coupling of RF power to
plasma near extraction region, an experiment was carried out by
partial shielding of an antenna i.e, shielding the last two turns with
Faraday shield having very fine slots. With this arrangement IED was
measured and found very encouraging results. Even though with
more than 50% of plasma that is away from the extraction region is
exposed to the antenna, energy spread was found to be surprisingly
low. Fig. 4 shows DE ¼ 6 eV, but the mean energy is still more than
55 eV and a small population of high energy ions is still present. It is
also clear that, by partially shielding the antenna towards the
extraction system with less transparent Faraday shield, fluctuations
in the plasma sheath are minimized resulting in reduced sheath
thickness facilitating production of monoenergetic ions in the
extraction region. With this arrangement, though the discharge
initiation was possible at low pressure and low RF power, fine
metallic film was formed on the inner surface of the plasma
chamber after operating the ion source for over 50 h. This limitation
was due to high plasma potentials of the order of 50 to 60 V that
accelerate Ar ions towards the plasma electrode and cause
4 P.Y. Nabhiraj et al. / Vacuum xxx (2010) 1e5

1.0
10

0.8
9

Energy spread (eV)

Normalized IED

0.6

8
0.4

7
0.2

6
0.0
0 20 40 60 80 100
Retarding Voltage (V) 20 40 60 80 100 120
Power (W)
Fig. 4. IED obtained by providing a Faraday shield for two turns of antenna. Prf ¼ 50 W,
P ¼ 0.01 mbar. DE ¼ 6.2 eV, Emean ¼ 51.5 eV. Fig. 6. Variation of DE with power at P ¼ 0.03 mbar. Minimum DE ¼ 6 eV obtained at
Prf ¼ 100 W.

sputtering. For 60 eV Ar ions, the sputtering yield of stainless steel is
greater than 0.1 and hence it is required to reduce the plasma
potential further to increase the operating life of the ion source [12].
Other major control parameters of ion source to reduce the ion
energy spread and the mean energy are gas pressure and RF power.
At higher gas pressures, sheath is collisional and though mean
energy is low, the ion energy spread is large and shows bimodal
energy distribution with low energy population of ions as shown in
Fig. 5a. As gas pressure is reduced from 0.06 mbar by one order, as
shown in Fig. 5a to e, ion energy spread reduced from 19 to 8.2 eV,
but there was a steady increase in the mean energy from 33 to
43 eV and the low energy tail in the distribution also disappeared.
Further reduction in the gas pressure caused marginal reduction in
the ion energy spread, but there was significant reduction in the ion
current.
1.0
0.5
0.0
1.0
0.5
0.0
Normalized IED
Variation of RF power showed marked reduction in the ion
energy spread from 10 to 6 eV and showed minima at about 100 W
as shown in Fig. 6. These IEDs were obtained with 80% transparent
Faraday shield and gas pressure of 0.03 mbar. Occurrence of this
minimum in the figure can be explained as follows. At low RF
powers, the plasma conductivity is low and hence the quality factor
(Q) of the antenna remains equal to the unloaded Q, thereby
producing high voltages across the antenna. These high voltages
increase the capacitive coupling effect on the plasma and deterio-
rate the energy spread of ions. At higher RF powers, electrons
become more energetic and cause larger ion energy spreads. At
optimum RF power, plasma density is high and as a consequence of
which the skin depth reduces, attenuating capacitive coupled RF
power reaching the bulk of plasma.
It is also interesting to note that optimum RF power was
different at different gas pressures. In all above experiments it was
observed that mean ion energy was still high and it was essential to
reduce it further below the sputtering threshold of steel electrode
which is about 40 eV.
e Capacitance between the antenna and the dielectric wall of
the plasma chamber and that between the dielectric wall and the
plasma form a capacitive divider network. RF voltages from the
antenna are divided by these two capacitors. Plasma sheath, being
d very thin in inductive discharges, offers high capacitance and
thereby small RF voltages appear across the plasma sheath [4]. To

1.0 reduce the coupling of RF voltages further, antenna diameter was

increased from 35 mm (inner diameter) to 55 mm. Increasing the
0.5 c diameter of the antenna demanded higher RF power for initiation
0.0 of plasma and total ion current reduced as the power coupling
1.0 efficiency reduced due to increased gap between antenna and the
0.5 b plasma. To initiate the plasma and obtain higher ion currents at
lower RF powers, plasma chamber was modified by dividing it into
0.0
two equal portions by a quartz separator with small aperture for
1.0
gas flow as shown schematically in Fig. 1(b). RF antenna is wound
0.5 a only on the lower plasma chamber and a 20% transparent Faraday
0.0 shield of same height as the antenna is interposed between the
0 20 40 60 quartz tube and the antenna as shown in Fig. 7. With the decrease in
Retarding Voltage (V) the volume, the power density is almost doubled to approximately
4 W/cm3 which is of the same order as in the plasma sources used
Fig. 5. Dependency of pressure on IED obtained at Prf ¼ 50 W. a) P ¼ 0.06 mbar:
DE ¼ 19 eV, Emean ¼ 33.3 eV. b) P ¼ 0.03 mbar: DE ¼ 8.2 eV, Emean ¼ 37.4 eV. c)
for semiconductor processing applications. Even with low RF
P ¼ 0.02 mbar: DE ¼ 7.6 eV, Emean ¼ 39.4 eV. d) P ¼ 0.01 mbar: DE ¼ 7.2 eV, powers (50 W), RF voltages from the high voltage end of the
Emean ¼ 39.4 eV, e) P ¼ 0.005 mbar: DE ¼ 8.2 eV, Emean ¼ 43.4 eV. antenna cause faint capacitive discharge in the upper plasma

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 P.Y. Nabhiraj et al. / Vacuum xxx (2010) 1e5
Fig. 7. (A): A faint Ar Plasma discharge is seen in the upper chamber of quartz tube due to capacitive coupling of high RF voltages from the antenna at 50 W and there is no discharge
in the lower chamber. (B): A strong inductive discharge in the lower chamber at 150 W of RF power.
chamber which is unshielded as shown in Fig. 7(a) and electrons
from this discharge diffuse into the lower chamber where almost all
capacitive coupling of RF power is eliminated by tight Faraday
shielding. Slight increase in the RF power quickly triggers strong
inductive discharge in the lower chamber as there are sufficient
electrons diffusing from upper chamber as shown in Fig. 7(b). These
electrons help in initiating inductive discharge at power levels as
low as 150 W, which otherwise would require more than 350 W of
RF power and 0.1 mbar of gas pressure. Though a faint capacitive
discharge co-exists in upper chamber along with the strong
inductive discharge in the lower chamber, plasma potential fluc-
tuations are not present in the plasma of lower chamber. Low
plasma potential obtained due to pure inductive discharge in the
lower chamber helped in extending the ion source life. This
configuration of ion source has been under use for more than 400 h
and there has not been any deterioration in the performance. It is
expected that this ion source will operate with the same perfor-
mance for still longer time.
By optimizing the Faraday shielding, RF power, gas pressure and
coil dimension, very low ion energy spread of 4 eV and low mean
energy of <40 eV were obtained. Fig. 8 shows the plot of ion current
Fig. 8. -B-VeI characteristics obtained from RFEA at an optimum source configuration
and - -differentiation of VeI characteristics. DE ¼ 4 eV, Emean ¼ 38 eV.
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5
with retarding potential and its differential showing the mono-
energetic IED obtained with the optimum power of 100 W and
pressure of 0.030 mbar.
4. Conclusion
Capacitive coupling of RF power to plasma in inductive
discharges contribute to large energy spread and large mean
energy of ions. By employing Faraday shielding, the ion energy
spread could be reduced from about 50 to 8.5 eV. By optimizing RF
power, gas pressure and coil dimension, ion energy spread further
was reduced to 4 eV. With increasing in the Faraday shielding it was
difficult to start the plasma discharge. To overcome this problem,
plasma chamber and Faraday shield was modified in such a way
that the low power capacitive coupled plasma in one chamber is
used to trigger the inductive discharge in the other chamber which
is 80% Faraday shielded. With this configuration, very clean single
peak ion energy distribution is obtained and practically there was
no metallic layer deposition on the inner surface of plasma
chamber even after 200 h of operation of the ion source.
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