Numerical study of the effect of gas temperature on the time for onset of particle nucleation in argon–silane low-pressure plasmas

Particle nucleation in silane plasmas has attracted interest for the past decade, both due to the basic problems of plasma chemistry involved and the importance of silane plasmas for many applications. A better understanding of particle nucleation may facilitate the avoidance of undesirable particle contamination as well as enable the controlled production of nanoparticles for novel applications. While understanding of particle nucleation has significantly advanced over the past years, a number of questions have not been resolved. Among these is the delay of particle nucleation with an increasing gas temperature, which has been observed in experiments in argon–silane plasmas. We have developed a quasi-one-dimensional model to simulate particle nucleation and growth in silane containing plasmas. In this paper we present a comparative study of the various effects that have been proposed as explanations for the nucleation delay. Our results suggest that the temperature dependence of the Brownian diffusion coefficient is the most important effect, as diffusion affects both the loss rate and growth rate of particles.