Ion beam experiments for the study of plasma–surface interactions

Experimental studies based on mass-selected ion beams are reviewed as a means to examine plasma–surface interactions for industrial plasma processing. Plasma etching and deposition processes widely used in the microelectronics industry exploit surface chemical reactions induced by plasmas. Such reactions typically result from a conglomeration of complex interactions of the surface material with incident free radicals and ions. While it is in general difficult to analyse individual surface reactions separately in a plasma system, ion and/or charge-neutral beam experiments allow one to analyse specific surface reactions involving only selected gaseous species. In this review, experiments on beam–surface interactions are discussed in detail and beam reaction data for silicon surfaces are presented as sample data.