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A self‐consistent two‐dimensional fluid model was used to study HBr/Cl2/O2 plasma discharge. A comprehensive set of 150 reactions comprising different processes (i.e., dissociation, ionization, and excitation) in tandem with 32 plasma species were considered in the computational model. The results revealed that the plasma reactions were dominated by 11 species (i.e., Cl, Cl+, Cl2+, H, H2, HCl, HCl+, Br, Br+, Br2, and HBr+), where the neutral species outnumbered the charged species. The density of charged species in the plasma reactor followed a bell shaped while the neutral species followed a double humped shaped distribution. The increase in plasma O2 concentration resulted in an initial decrease, followed by a gradual increase in the generation of Cl, Br, H, Cl+, and Br+ in the plasma discharge. A lower/higher concentration of oxygen in the plasma stimulated the densities of neutral/charged species, which facilitated the chemical/physical etching pathway. These findings provide new insights into the type of etching species and their optimization in the HBr/Cl2/O2 plasma discharge, with potential applications in the semiconductor industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The kinetic theory of plasma has been employed to compute the test‐charge potential distributions accounting for quantization effects in magnetized electron‐positron‐ion (EPI) plasmas. In this regard, the degenerate positrons and electrons are assumed to follow the Fermi‐Dirac distribution, while inertial ions are modelled by Maxwellian velocity distribution. By solving the Fourier‐transformed Vlasov–Poisson equations, a modified dielectric function and electrostatic potential is obtained. By imposing various constraints on the test‐charge speed, the potential profile has been analysed in terms of Debye–Hückel (DH), far‐field (FF), and wake‐field (WF) potentials. It has been found that the amplitude of DH and FF potentials increases by the inclusion of quantization effects, and it becomes the opposite for the WF potential profile. Furthermore, the variation of positron concentration significantly affects the DH, FF, and WF potentials. The present findings are important to understand the shielding phenomenon in degenerate multi‐species plasmas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]