Experimental investigation of hybrid-evaporation-glow discharge plasma immersion ion implantation

High-voltage pulsed glow discharge is applied to plasma immersion ion implantation (PIII). In the glow discharge, the target constitutes the cathode and the gas tube forms the anode under a relatively high working gas pressure of 0.15-0.2 Pa. The characteristics of the glow discharge and ion density are measured experimentally. Our results show resemblance to hollow-anode glow discharge and the anode fall is faster than that of general glow discharge. Because of electron focusing in the anode tube orifice, ions are ionized efficiently and most of them impact the negatively biased samples. The resulting ion current density is higher than that in other PIII modes and possible mechanisms of the glow discharge PIII are proposed and discussed. © 2005 American Institute of Physics.