Optical Spectroscopy of Surfaces Plasmas Treaments

Abstract

Surface plasmas treaments have been studied in Ar - gas mixtures (H₂, N₂) as film depositions in fields like microelectronics with amorphous a-SiH, iron nitriding and hard coatings with TiN deposition. Several plasmas setups are considered: sputtering plasmas for a-SiH and TiN deposition and plasmas afterglows for iron nitriding. To control the process, diagnostics by optical spectroscopy have been developed, in particular the resonant absorption method with adapted optical sources. Densities of species such as rare gas (He, Ar) metastable atoms, Al and Ti sputtered target atoms have been determined. The densities of Ti and Ti+ ground and metastable states have been specifically obtained. The behaviour of these active species by varying the plasma parameters has been related to the quality of the deposited films.