Review of heating mechanism research in inductively coupled plasma

Abstract

Electron heating is fundamental and essential to sustain plasma in an inductively coupled plasma as well as other plasmas. Ohmic heating randomized by collisions, especially electron-neutral collisions, is dominant at high pressure (en&unknown;). Stochastic heating (collisionless heating) is caused by collisions with inhomogeneous fields in inductive mode or moving sheath in the capacitive mode of inductively coupled plasma (ICP). These electron-heating mechanisms in ICP are classified in this paper and recent experimental and theoretical results focusing on the electron energy distribution function (EEDF) and rf fields in the collisionless regime are presented. We suggest that further issues need to be resolved to better understand the main heating process in low-pressure ICP operation.