Presidential Young Investigator

这项拨款是为了在国家科学基金会总统青年研究者奖励计划下为Brian E. Thompson博士提供研究支持。辉光放电（等离子体）处理在半导体工业中起着重要作用。本研究的总体目标是通过(1)增加对物理现象的理解，(2)预测模拟技术，(3)更容易应用的实验诊断，能够更好地操作和开发等离子体过程。研究等离子体放电中的电子和离子浓度是本项目的主要推动力，因为这些带电粒子影响气相反应和表面现象。目标是开发非侵入式技术，以确定工业反应堆中的电子和离子浓度和能量。PI还计划模拟等离子体中的带电粒子。其中一个目标是建立一个模型来预测射频等离子体中的电子和离子能量和浓度。另一个目标是检验和优化模型方程的求解技术。除了带电粒子分析外，他还将研究放电中带电物质的反应。该模型的一个长期目标是找到一种实用的方法来预测电子-分子碰撞产生中性物质的速率，并将其作为放电操作参数的函数。另一个目标是开发实验技术，特别是频率响应分析，以确定操作系统中适用的速率常数。以上将应用于低频等离子体增强氮化物和氧化物的化学气相沉积以及用于清洁电子部件的氧/氮等离子体。

This grant is to provide research support for Dr. Brian E. Thompson under the National Science Foundation's Presidential Young Investigator Awards Program. Glow discharge (plasma) processing plays a large role in the semiconductor industry. The overall goal of this research is to be able to operate and develop plasma processes better by having (1) increased understanding of the physical phenomena, (2) predictive simulation techniques, and (3) more easily-applied experimental diagnostics. Studying electron and ion concentrations in plasma discharges is a major thrust of this project because these charged particles affect gas-phase reactions and surface phenomena. The goal is to develop non-intrusive techniques to determine electron and ion concentrations and energies in industrially-used reactors. The PI also plans to model charged particles in plasmas. One goal is to create a model that predicts electron and ion energies and concentrations in radio-frequency plasmas. The other goal is to examine and optimize the solution techniques for the model equations. Besides charged-particle analysis, he will examine the reactions of charge-neutral species in the discharge. One long term goal of this modeling is finding a practical way of predicting creation rates of neutral species from electron-molecule collisions as a function of discharge operating parameters. Another goal is to develop experimental techniques, especially frequency response analysis, for determining the applicable rate constants in an operating system. The above will be applied to the low-frequency plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition of nitrides and oxides and oxygen/nitrogen plasmas for cleaning electronic parts.