Recent Progress on Helicon Plasma

Helicon plasma, one of the plasma sources producing highest density, is attracting tremendous interest in low temperature plasma application field. Helicon plasma has many advantages, such as high ionization efficiency, high electron density, low confined magnetic field, relatively simple structure, discharge in low pressure.Based on these features, the helicon plasma has a wide range of applications in integrated circuit technique, thin film deposition, etching, surface modification, plasma aerospace propulsion. This paper reviewed the recent progress on helicon plasma in current years on its basic theory, coupling mechanism, low field peak phenomenon, electric double layers(DLs) and the helicon plasma propulsion mechanism, and then the future development direction of helicon plasma was proposed.