Plasma optical emission spectroscopy diagnostic during amorphous silicon thin films deposition by Rf sputtering technique

This paper deals with the study of the glow discharge, used for amorphous silicon thin films deposition by Rf sputtering technique. The produced plasma is investigated by mean of the optical emission spectroscopy (OES) analysis. Different plasmas obtained with changing the gas pressure and Rf powers were analysed at different positions in the inter-electrode space. Emission lines from Ar, Si, Si+ and Ar+ were observed in the visible region. It was found that emission intensities of all the observed lines have a spatial Gaussian shape. The maximum intensity is located in the core of the plasma and decrease in the electrodes region. The ratio between the Si and Ar+ intensities (ISi/IAr+ISi/IAr+), in the target region, is proposed as a new tool to estimate the Ar sputtering yield. This ratio was compared to the theoretical calculated sputtering yield. The difference between these two quantities is exploited to determine the contribution of fast Ar neutrals in the sputtering process.