ONE-DIMENSIONAL SIMULATION OF MICROWAVE PROPAGATION IN ELECTRON-CYCLOTRON-RESONANCE PLASMAS

Recently, there have been many efforts in modeling new processing plas ma sources such as electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) plasmas, helicon -wave-excited plasmas and inductively coupled plasmas. In the new sour ces ECR plasmas are especially difficult to model because of highly no nlinear coupling between microwaves and the magnetized plasma. Accordi ngly, appropriate modeling oi the interactions between the microwave a nd the magnetized plasma is the key to resolving the problem. In this paper, we present numerical simulations based on a one-dimensional mod el using the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method and discuss t he characteristics of the microwave propagation in ECR plasmas. Furthe rmore, we compare the simulation results with the experimental results by interferometry measurement and show the validity of the model. As a result, it is found that the model proposed here can simulate the qu alitative characteristics of the microwave propagation in the plasma, which strongly depend on gas pressure.