Synthesis of sheath voltage drops in asymmetric radio-frequency discharges

A numerical simulation code to estimate the sheath voltage drops and self-bias voltage was developed. The ability to determine the kinetic energy of ions incident on the target or substrate made a sheath voltage drop in asymmetric discharge as an important parameter of radio frequency capacitively coupled plasmas. Time step much smaller than the rf period was used to discretize one rf cycle and general asymmetric rf discharges to one-dimensional spherical was approximated. It was found that the simulation results agrees with Lieberman's theory with the use of geometric mean of areas of the sheath edge and the electrode as the area of capacitive sheath.