Effect of Magnetic Field on High-Voltage Glow Discharge during Plasma Implantation

Plasma immersion ion implantation (PIII) can be performed using either plasmas produced by external power sources such as RF and ECR or self-igniting high-voltage glow discharge. Sometimes, PHI using these two modes overlap. For instance, glow discharge can occur simultaneously in RF PIII. The self-igniting plasma implantation technique has advantages such as lower equipment cost and better control of the interactions between the plasma and sample surface and chamber wall. In our experiments, we discovered that the discharge behavior was influenced significantly by external factors such as pre-existing plasma and magnetic fields. In this paper, we report our findings on the effects on the magnetic field on the high-voltage glow discharge process. Different from seed electrons, the magnetic field affects both the delay time (time between the initial on-set of the high voltage pulse and discharge ignition) and discharge current.