Active and passive plasma spectroscopy in a plasma immersion ion implantation (PIII ) experiment

Abstract Plasma immersion ion implantation (PIII) is an emerging surface modification technique that can be used for three-dimensional ion implantation of non-planar components at low cost compared with the traditional line-of-sight implantation method using accelerators. We have developed a PIII system based on 2.45 GHz microwave-generated plasmas with densities of 10 16 –10 17  m −3 and temperatures of few eV which allow high-ion-flux implantation in components of complex shape. These plasma parameters are also adequate for diagnostics using passive and active spectroscopic methods even in the presence of high voltages applied to the samples. The principles of active plasma spectroscopy (beam emission spectroscopy) for microwave PIII plasmas and its present status in our laboratory, as well as preliminary passive spectroscopy results, are described. Furthermore, results on the characterization of some irradiated samples and optimization of our PIII device are also presented.