Recent Results From The Helicon Reactor

The helicon reactor uses 13.56 MHz energy to couple into a plasma wave which exists between the ion and electron gyro frequencies. In a 5 cm source, electron densities of 10
¹⁴
cm
^-3
have been obtained at the lower hybrid frequency. The energy transfer mechanism of the wave appears to be via Landau demping. The plasma processing version uses a 15 cm diameter source immersed in a magnetic field of 100 gauss connected to a 30 cm diameter diffusion region. Ion currents to the substrate can easily be greater than 10 m A cm
^-2
at pressures of a few millitorr. The plasma behaviour is described, in particular "the jump" where the density increases by an order of magnitude accompanied by a decrease of the circuit Q. The latest results on etching and deposition are presented.