Impedance Characteristic Analysis and Preliminary Experimental Results of a High-Power RF Plasma Source

To study the characteristics of radio frequency (RF) power coupling, RF plasma diagnostics, actively cooled tube, and negative ion production, a plasma source was designed as a small-scale test facility. The matching network was carefully designed and successfully applied to the 2-MHz RF plasma source. In this article, the design method of the matching unit will be presented; with the assistance of this matching unit, the RF plasma source was successfully lit and the reflected power was reduced to a very low level. A V-I probe was installed in front of or in the rear of the matching network, respectively, to in situ measure the RF voltage, current, and phase angle. The equivalent resistance of the RF plasma source was analyzed in detail. The RF power coupling efficiency was derived in two different methods, and the relationship between the coupling efficiency and the equivalent resistance of the plasma source is verified. At the same time, the equivalent resistance of the plasma source was also collected to optimize the matching unit.