Experimental measurement of the total energy losses in a low pressure inductively coupled argon plasma

Total energy losses per electron-ion pair lost (εT) were measured experimentally in a low pressure inductively coupled argon plasma. A floating probe working at very low bias voltage (∼1 V) was used to obtain the electron temperatures and plasma densities at the plasma-sheath boundary. εT was found from a power balance equation between the absorbed power and dissipated power by electrons and ions. At 10 mTorr, the measurement shows that the measured εT (∼100 V) gradually decreased with absorbed power, and this indicates that the ionization efficiency enhances by multistep ionizations. These εT are consistent with the theoretical results.