Observations of Surface Mode Influence on Plasma Uniformity in PIC/MCC Simulations of Large Capacitive Discharges

Capacitively coupled plasmas with large electrodes, driven at high frequencies, exhibit new physics compared to small scale CCP devices or at low frequencies. This is due to excitation of two types of surface modes which arise as a result of interaction between the bulk plasma and the plasma sheaths separating the plasma from electrodes. Based on the physical effects that these modes cause, they are labeled as “self-bias” (SB) and “plasma-series resonance” (PSR) modes. Results of electrostatic 2d3v PIC/MCC simulations for a model geometry are used to selectively study the SB modes and demonstrate that they lead to non-uniformities of the plasma density profile owing to the influence of the SB modes on the heating of high- and low-energy electrons.