Precursors of fluorocarbon film growth studied by mass spectrometry

A quadrupole mass spectrometer is used to study the precursor species of fluorocarbon film growth at the reactor wall irradiated by an electron cyclotron resonance C4F8 plasma. The study shows that the fluxes of CFx radicals and positive ions incident upon the wall are shown to be comparable with the net condensed carbon flux derived from the growth rate and in contrast, the trends in the amount of polymeric neutrals are not well correlated to the growth rate.