Laser-induced fluorescence Investigation of glow discharge plasmas

Abstract

Plasma processing (plasma etching and deposition) is widely used in microelectronics technology. There is a need for direct nonperturbative plasma diagnostic techniques. Optical emission is useful but suffers from the disadvantage that it does not only depend on the ground state density of the probed species but also on the electron density and energy distributions. Laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) in contrast directly determines the ground state density. LIF also provides excellent spatial and temporal resolution and gives direct information on the translational and internal (rotational, vibrational) energies of the plasma constituents. © 1983 Optical Society of America