Outline: Plasma is matter heated beyond its gaseous state, heated to a temperature so high that atoms are stripped of at least one electron in their outer shells, so that what remains are positive ions in a sea of free electrons. Electrons and ions behave the attractive roles compared with gaseous state as they have higher energy than gases. Plasma including their particles plays an effective role for nanotechnology, is so-called “Plasma processing”. Plasma processing has recently drawn significant attention owing to its promising applications, including in semiconductor and manufacturing industries around the world. Many plasma sources and experiments developed in the past four decades have been discussed for the purposes of material processing and functional film preparation.

Capacitively-coupled plasmas (CCPs) functioned by a radio-frequency (RF) power supply at 13.56 MHz operating in various gases are, in principle, some of the simplest, and easily maintained methods of large-diameter substrate processing, and are important in many high-tech applications, including etching, deposition of thin films, modification of surface properties and microelectronic device fabrication. In particular, CCPs have some limitations, such as a low plasma density of less than 109–1010 cm-3, a low deposition rate, the standing wave effect on the powered electrode (target), as well as the difficulty of controlling external parameters and energized ions at the target independently. Therefore, the conventional CCPs are not a tool suitable for plasma processing. 

Recently, RF magnetized plasma sources have been widely used in microelectronics, such as magnetic films, surface treatment and cleaning, diamond-like carbon, biomaterial thin films, flat panel display fabrication, transparent conductive oxide film preparation for solar cells and mobile phones, and many other rapidly growing areas. In particular, RF magnetron plasma sources have become an attractive tool for functional film preparation. In the conventional magnetron system, target material is not effectively used because high-density plasma is localized on the target surface. The target utilization is very low, approximately at 20-30%. From the practical viewpoint of the limited resources, the utilizations of the target material are necessary. In general, near the chamber wall, the plasma potential and the plasma density is very small because an ion sheath exists near the wall. The plasma potential varies slowly in the plasma, but rapidly in the sheath region. Only in the sheath region, the quasineutrality property cannot be satisfied. The plasma density profile is relatively flat in the center and falls sharply near the sheath edge. Therefore, high-density plasma discharge is required in a specific area and also in the outer region of the chamber to obtain a convenient outer target area erosion profile near the chamber wall. Moreover, to deposit a functional thin film in a specific area and near the chamber wall, the target utilization in a specific area is required from the view point of target utilization. A capacitively coupled plasma (CCP) driven by radio frequency power supply at 13.56MHz, which is proposed for uniform functional thin film deposition.