On anomalous temporal evolution of gas pressure in inductively coupled plasma

The temporal measurement of gas pressure in inductive coupled plasma revealed that there is an interesting anomalous evolution of gas pressure in the early stage of plasma ignition and extinction: a sudden gas pressure change and its relaxation of which time scales are about a few seconds and a few tens of second, respectively, were observed after plasma ignition and extinction. This phenomenon can be understood as a combined result between the neutral heating effect induced by plasma and the pressure relaxation effect for new gas temperature. The temporal measurement of gas temperature by laser Rayleigh scattering and the time dependant calculations for the neutral heating and pressure relaxation are in good agreement with our experimental results. This result and physics behind are expected to provide a new operational perspective of the recent plasma processes of which time is very short, such as a plasma enhanced atomic layer deposition/etching, a soft etch for disposal of residual by-products on wafer, and light oxidation process in semiconductor manufacturing.