Quantifying Plasma-Surface Interactions: Charge Exchange, Energy Losses, Fragmentation, and Reactions

题目：等离子体-表面相互作用的量化：电荷交换、能量损失、碎片化和反应本研究主要关注高能离子与表面碰撞时发生的情况，并解决等离子体-表面相互作用中长期存在的问题。离子表面碰撞在许多表面敏感分析技术中是至关重要的。它们在工业过程中也是必不可少的，例如等离子体蚀刻和沉积，两者都是半导体芯片制造中不可或缺的。尽管它们具有重要意义，但对等离子体表面相互作用的理解落后于应用，迫使过程开发通过繁琐、耗时和昂贵的试验和错误。这种理解可以通过离子束实验获得，而离子束实验本身很难进行。一个独特而强大的离子束线散射装置，在过去的6年里，在国家科学基金会和工业支持下，由PI的小组定制，使拟议的研究成为可能。该装置利用等离子体提取和纯化离子，如氟和氟化碳，然后将其输送到并允许与接地的样品表面相互作用，如硅、铝和氧化硅，这些在制造微处理器中都很重要。利用灵敏的质谱仪和能量分析仪监测相互作用的结果，以推断散射产物的身份并测量其能量。要研究的具体现象包括表面电荷交换、离子碎裂、量子力学效应造成的能量损失和反应机制。将产生散射相互作用的详细图像，包括蚀刻产率和反应产物作为入射能量和角度的函数。实验将辅以分子动力学模拟，以提高对原子的理解。广泛影响：这项研究预计将产生足够基础的结果，以供理论家用于验证光束表面相互作用的原子模拟，并足够实用，以供工艺工程师用于选择化学物质和操作条件，以快速优化等离子体工具。目的是通过结合基本光束散射实验和蚀刻轮廓演变模拟，在蚀刻工艺发展中建立一个新的范例，从而加快半导体制造新蚀刻工艺的发展。通过这些实验获得的知识和理解将被纳入等离子体表面相互作用的课程和教程中，以教育学生和工程师了解化学反应动力学的基本原理。此外，一项新的低成本实验涉及大气微等离子体在硅的直接图像化，将向本科生介绍等离子体表面相互作用。

CTS-0613981 Award AbstractTitle: Quantifying Plasma-Surface Interactions: Charge Exchange, Energy Losses, Fragmentation, and ReactionsThis research focuses on what happens when energetic ions collide with surfaces and addresses long-standing issues in plasma-surface interactions. Ion-surface collisions are of paramount importance in many surface-sensitive analytical techniques. They are also essential in industrial processes, such as plasma etching and deposition, both indispensable in semiconductor chip fabrication. In spite of their significance, understanding of plasma-surface interactions has lagged behind applications, forcing process development by cumbersome, time-consuming, and costly trial and error. Such understanding can be obtained through ion beam experiments, which are themselves very difficult to perform. A unique and powerful ion-beamline scattering apparatus, custom-built in the PI's group over the last 6 years with NSF and industrial support, makes the proposed research possible. The apparatus utilizes plasmas to extract and purify ions, such as fluorine and carbon fluorides, which are then transported to and allowed to interact with a grounded sample surface, such as silicon, aluminum, and silicon oxide, all important in fabricating microprocessors. The outcome of the interaction is monitored using sensitive mass spectrometers and energy analyzers to infer the identity and measure the energy of the scattered products. Specific phenomena to be studied include charge exchange at surfaces, ion fragmentation, energy losses due to quantum mechanical effects, and reaction mechanisms. A detailed picture of the scattering interaction will be produced including etch yields and reaction products as a function of incident energy and angle. The experiments will be complemented by molecular dynamics simulations to improve atomistic understanding. Broad Impact: This research is expected to generate results that are fundamental enough to be used by theorists for validating atomistic simulations of beam-surface interactions and practical enough to be useful to process engineers for selecting chemistries and operating conditions for rapid optimization of plasma tools. The intent is to establish a new paradigm in etch process development through a combination of fundamental beam scattering experiments and etch profile evolution simulations, thus speeding up the development of new etch processes for semiconductor fabrication. Knowledge and understanding obtained through these experiments will be incorporated in courses and tutorials on plasma-surface interactions to educate students and engineers on the underlying principles of chemical reaction dynamics. In addition, a new, low-cost experiment involving atmospheric microplasmas in direct patterning of silicon will introduce plasma-surface interactions to undergraduates.