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Two classic radio-frequency (RF) plasmas, i.e., the capacitively and the inductively coupled plasmas (CCP and ICP), are widely employed in material processing, e.g., etching and thin film deposition, etc. Since RF plasmas are usually operated in particular circumstances, e.g., low pressures (mTorr–Torr), high-frequency electric field (13.56 MHz–200 MHz), reactive feedstock gases, diverse reactor configurations, etc., a variety of physical phenomena, e.g., electron resonance heating, discharge mode transitions, striated structures, standing wave effects, etc., arise. These physical effects could significantly influence plasma-based material processing. Therefore, understanding the fundamental processes of RF plasma is not only of fundamental interest, but also of practical significance for the improvement of the performance of the plasma sources. In this article, we review the major progresses that have been achieved in the fundamental study on the RF plasmas, and the topics include 1) electron heating mechanism, 2) plasma operation mode, 3) pulse modulated plasma, and 4) electromagnetic effects. These topics cover the typical issues in RF plasma field, ranging from fundamental to application.

A fluid model is employed to investigate the effect of radio frequency bias on the behavior of an argon inductively coupled plasma (ICP). In particular, the effects of ICP source power, single-frequency bias power, and dual-frequency bias power on the characteristics of ICP are simulated at a fixed pressure of 30 mTorr (1 Torr = 1.33322 × 102 Pa). When the bias frequency is fixed at 27.12 MHz, the two-dimensional (2D) plasma density profile is significantly affected by the bias power at low ICP source power (e.g., 50 W), whereas it is weakly affected by the bias power at higher ICP source power (e.g., 100 W). When dual-frequency (27.12 MHz/2.26 MHz) bias is applied and the sum of bias powers is fixed at 500 W, a pronounced increase in the maximum argon ion density is observed with the increase of the bias power ratio in the absence of ICP source power. As the ratio of 27.12-MHz/2.26-MHz bias power decreases from 500 W/0 W to 0 W/500 W with the ICP source power fixed at 50 W, the plasma density profiles smoothly shifts from edge-high to center-high, and the effect of bias power on the plasma distribution becomes weaker with the bias power ratio decreasing. Besides, the axial ion flux at the substrate surface is characterized by a maximum at the edge of the substrate. When the ICP source power is higher, the 2D plasma density profiles, as well as the spatiotemporal and radial distributions of ion flux at the substrate surface are characterized by a peak in the reactor center, and the distributions of plasma parameters are negligibly affected by the dual-frequency bias power ratio.

The effect of the dielectric ring on the plasma radial uniformity is numerically investigated in the practical 450-mm capacitively coupled plasma reactor by a two-dimensional self-consistent fluid model. The simulations were performed for N2/Ar discharges at the pressure of 300 Pa, and the frequency of 13.56 MHz. In the practical plasma treatment process, the wafer is always surrounded by a dielectric ring, which is less studied. In this paper, the plasma characteristics are systematically investigated by changing the properties of the dielectric ring, i.e., the relative permittivity, the thickness and the length. The results indicate that the plasma parameters strongly depend on the properties of the dielectric ring. As the ratio of the thickness to the relative permittivity of the dielectric ring increases, the electric field at the wafer edge becomes weaker due to the stronger surface charging effect. This gives rise to the lower ion density, flux and N atom density at the wafer edge. Thus the homogeneous plasma density is obtained by selecting optimal dielectric ring relative permittivity and thickness. In addition, we also find that the length of the dielectric ring should be as short as possible to avoid the discontinuity of the dielectric materials, and thus obtain the large area uniform plasma.

A new type of two-dimensional self-consistent fluid model that couples an equivalent circuit module is used to investigate the mode transition characteristics and hysteresis in hydrogen inductively coupled plasmas at different pressures, by varying the series capacitance of the matching box. The variations of the electron density, temperature, and the circuit electrical properties are presented. As cycling the matching capacitance, at high pressure both the discontinuity and hysteresis appear for the plasma parameters and the transferred impedances of both the inductive and capacitive discharge components, while at low pressure only the discontinuity is seen. The simulations predict that the sheath plays a determinative role on the presence of discontinuity and hysteresis at high pressure, by influencing the inductive coupling efficiency of applied power. Moreover, the values of the plasma transferred impedances at different pressures are compared, and the larger plasma inductance at low pressure due to less collision frequency, as analyzed, is the reason why the hysteresis is not seen at low pressure, even with a wider sheath. Besides, the behaviors of the coil voltage and current parameters during the mode transitions are investigated. They both increase (decrease) at the E to H (H to E) mode transition, indicating an improved (worsened) inductive power coupling efficiency.

In this work, a two-dimensional fluid model has been employed to study the characteristics of Ar/O2 radio frequency (RF) inductively coupled plasma discharges. The emphasis of this work has been put on the influence of the external parameters (i.e., the RF power, the pressure, and the Ar/O2 gas ratio) on the plasma properties. The numerical results show that the RF power has a significant influence on the amplitude of the plasma density rather than on the spatial distribution. However, the pressure and the Ar/O2 gas ratio affect not only the amplitude of the plasma density, but also the spatial uniformity. Finally, the comparison between the simulation results and the experimental data has been made at different gas pressures and oxygen contents, and a good agreement has been achieved.

The inflexion point of electron density and effective electron temperature curves versus radio-frequency (RF) bias voltage is observed in the H mode of inductively coupled plasmas (ICPs). The electron energy probability function (EEPF) evolves first from a Maxwellian to a Druyvesteyn-like distribution, and then to a Maxwellian distribution again as the RF bias voltage increases. This can be explained by the interaction of two distinct bias-induced mechanisms, that is: bias-induced electron heating and bias-induced ion acceleration loss and the decrease of the effective discharge volume due to the sheath expansion. Furthermore, the trend of electron density is verified by a fluid model combined with a sheath module.

Implementation of a nonlocal multi-qubit conditional phase gate is an essential requirement in some quantum information processing (QIP) tasks. Recently, a novel solid-state cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED) system, in which the nitrogen–vacancy (NV) center in diamond is coupled to a microtoroidal resonator (MTR), has been proposed as a potential system for hybrid quantum information and computing. By virtue of such systems, we present a scheme to realize a nonlocal N-qubit conditional phase gate directly. Our scheme employs a cavity input–output process and single-photon interference, without the use of any auxiliary entanglement pair or classical communication. Considering the currently available technologies, our scheme might be quite useful among different nodes in quantum networks for large-scaled QIP.

We propose a practical entanglement concentration protocol (ECP) for a hybrid entangled state using quantum dots and a microcavity coupled system. A hybrid less-entangled state can be concentrated to a most-entangled state with a certain probability using only one ancillary single photon. Moreover, using this protocol, we can also concentrate an arbitrary three-particle less-entangled W state using two ancillary photons and classical communication. The proposed protocols provide us with a useful method to concentrate less-entangled states, which can be implemented with current technology.

An improved quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) protocol is proposed in this paper. Blocks of entangled photon pairs are transmitted in two steps in which secret messages are transmitted directly. The single logical qubits and unitary operations under decoherence free subspaces are presented and the generalized Bell states are constructed which are immune to the collective noise. Two steps of qubit transmission are used in this protocol to guarantee the security of communication. The security of the protocol against various attacks are discussed.