10th International symposium on Negative Ions, Beams and Sources - NIBS'26

ExB Plasmas Generated by e-beams and non-thermal electrons for processing two-dimensional materials including negative ions and applications

Sep 24, 2026, 10:10 AM

25m

Conference Room (Prestige Lakeside Resort Nelson)

Invited S2: Chairperson - Andrei Smolyakov, U. Sask

Speaker

Yevgeny Raitses (Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory)

Description

There is a growing interest in the use of low temperature magnetized plasmas generated by electron beams and non-thermal electrons for processing of materials at atomic scale with applications to microelectronics and quantum systems.[1-3] For these applications, the plasma (density ~ 109-1010 cm-3 and electron temperature ~ 0.1-0.5 eV) is typically generated by injecting an energetic (102 – 104 eV) electrons into a low pressure (1-10’s mtorr) background gas along the applied magnetic field (~10-100 Gauss). The magnetic field helps to confine the plasma and separate the plasma regions with energetic electrons in the injected region and colder electrons at the plasma periphery. These partially ionized and partially magnetized plasmas can be subject to a number of instabilities including beam-plasma,[4] and gradient drift instabilities [5] which may, for example, alter the propagation of energetic electrons along the reactor and ion heating,[6] respectively. For soft processing applications, these effects may be unwanted as they can cause plasma non-uniformities and enhance ion-induced damage to substrates. In this talk, we will discuss results on mitigation of these instabilities and control of plasma kinetics using active boundaries.[7,8] A special attention will be devoted to applications of the ExB plasmas to processing of 2D materials such as graphene3, transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) as well as diamond.2 A potential role of negative ions generated in these plasmas will also be discussed.

References:
[1] D. R. Boris, S. C. Hernández, E. H. Lock, Tz. B. Petrova1, G. M. Petrov and R. F. Fernsler, ECS J. Solid State Sci. Technol. 4, N5033 (2015)
[2] C. Pederson, R. Giridharagopal, F. Zhao, S. T. Dunham, Y. Raitses, D. S. Ginger, K-M. Fu, Phys. Rev. Mater. 8, 036201 (2024)
[3] F. Zhao, Y. Raitses, X. Yang, A. Tan, and C. G. Tully, Carbon 117, 244 (2021)
[4] H. Sun, J. Chen, I. D. Kaganovich, A. Khrabrov, D. Sydorenko, Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 125001 (2022)
[5] M. Tyushev, M. Papahn Zadeh, V. Sharma, M. Sengupta, Y. Raitses, J.-P. Boeuf, and A. Smolyakov, Phys. Plasmas 30, 033506 (2023)
[6] N. S. Chopra, I. Romadanov and Y. Raitses, Appl. Phys. Lett. 124, 064101 (2024)
[7] E. Rodriguez, V. Skoutnev, Y. Raitses, A. Powis, I. Kaganovich, and A. Smolyakov, Phys. Plasmas 26, 053503 (2019)
[8] N. S. Chopra, I. Romadanov, Y. Raitses, Appl. Phys. Lett. 33, 125003 (2024)