TABLE OF CONTENTS In thin film technology, during the last few years, the demands on thin film quality and process reproducibility have dramatically increased. Highly sophisticated analytical equipment is now required for the necessary control of the basic discharge mechanisms. Especially in case of plasma surface processing, the information about the particle and energy flux to the surface is of essential importance for the understanding of the extremely complex plasma surface interaction processes.
However, this information especially remains hidden for standard bulk plasma diagnostics. The reasons why most methods fail, are the strong electric fields in the plasma sheath covering each surface in contact with the plasma, and consequently the large concentration gradients and the anisotropic velocity distributions of the charge carriers reaching orders of magnitude higher energies than in the bulk plasma region.
Optical diagnostic methods give very selective information about the species composition in the bulk plasma. But resolving the concentration within the plasma sheath is a highly dedicated experimental task, and no detailed statement about the velocity distribution could be derived (Chapt. 2.). A similar statement is true for Langmuir probe diagnostics, which is a useful tool for the bulk plasma diagnostics. But close to any surface the plasma sheaths of probe and surface affect each other, and the probe signal could not be evaluated correctly [1].
Mass spectrometry and electrostatic energy analyzers sampling directly at the substrate or electrode surface, respectively, turned out to be the most...
