Electromagnetic effects in high-frequency capacitive discharges used for plasma processing

In plasma processing, capacitive discharges have classically been operated in the electrostatic regime, for which the excitation wavelength λ is much greater than the electrode radius, and the plasma skin depth δ is much greater than the electrode spacing. However, contemporary reactors are larger and excited at higher frequencies which leads to strong electromagnetic effects. This paper gives a review of the work that has recently been carried out to carefully model and diagnose these effects, which cause major uniformity problems in plasma processing for microelectronics and flat panel displays industries.