Collisional, magnetic, and nonlinear skin effect in radio-frequency plasmas

The penetration of radio-frequency energy into cylindrical devices is relevant to the production of uniform plasmas for etching and deposition processes in the production of semiconductor circuits. The so-called anomalous skin effect has been invoked to explain irregularities not predicted by classical electromagnetic theory. These expectations are summarized for the collisionality regimes of interest, and new results are given for nonkinetic effects caused by small direct current magnetic fields and the ponderomotive force. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.