Kinetic Mie ellipsometry to determine the time-resolved particle growth in nanodusty plasmas

Abstract

The growth of nanometer-sized particles in a reactive argon-acetylene plasma is investigated by means of kinetic single-wavelength Mie ellipsometry from the change of the polarization state of scattered light. This requires advanced measurement techniques as well as complex methods for the analysis of the measured data. Today commercial devices reduce the metrological effort, but the data analysis is still a challenging topic. We present a scheme to gain time-resolved information about the size evolution of monodisperse spherical particles and to determine their optical properties, represented by the complex refractive index N, without limiting assumptions concerning the evolution of the particle size or the need for additional ex situ diagnostics. The method is applied on typical particle growth processes at varying optical depth and compared to ex situ SEM measurements. It is shown that more complex processes, including particle etching, can be analyzed. This demonstrates the applicability of the analysis on a strongly non-linear process.