Experimental and simulation investigation of electrical and plasma parameters in a low pressure inductively coupled argon plasma

The electrical and plasma parameters of a low pressure inductively coupled argon plasma are investigated over a wide range of parameters (RF power, flow rate and pressure) by diverse characterizations. The external antenna voltage and current increase with the augment of RF power, whereas decline with the enhancement of gas pressure and flow rate conversely. Compared with gas flow rate and pressure, the power transfer efficiency is significantly improved by RF power, and achieved its maximum value of 0.85 after RF power injected excess 125 W. Optical emission spectroscopy (OES) provides the local mean values of electron excited temperature and electron density in inductively coupled plasma (ICP) post regime, which vary in a range of 0.81 eV to 1.15 eV and 3.7× 10¹⁶ m ^-3 to 8.7× 10¹⁷m ^-3, respectively. Numerical results of the average magnitudes of electron temperature and electron density in two-dimensional distribution exhibit similar variation trend with the experimental results under different operating condition by using COMSOL Multiphysics. By comprehensively understanding the characteristics in a low pressure ICP, optimized operating conditions could be anticipated aiming at different academic and industrial applications.