Breakdown Characteristics of RF Argon Capacitive Discharge

Measured breakdown characteristics of a capacitively coupled rf argon discharge at 13.56 MHz are compared with breakdown criterion derived from the electron balance model in which the difference between the longitudinal and transverse electron diffusion coefficients is taken into account. For the right-hand branch of the minimum of V-shaped breakdown voltage curves, good agreement between the observed and predicted criteria is found in the case of short electrode separations when the electron formation rate is calculated in terms of the time-averaged ionization frequency.