Advancing the frontier of non-equilibrium plasma enabled semiconductor manufacturing: laser-spectroscopy measurements of non-equilibrium molecular pla

Plasma — the electrically charged gas inside semiconductor fabrication tools — is etching and depositing the nanoscale circuitry in every computer chip, yet the chemical reactions driving that process remain poorly understood. This project aims to fix that gap. Semiconductor manufacturing relies on "non-equilibrium" plasmas, where electrons are far hotter than the surrounding gas, creating a soup of reactive molecules that carve features just a few atoms wide. Current models of these plasmas rely on guesswork because no one has directly measured the key chemical species under real industrial conditions. The researchers will use laser spectroscopy — firing precisely tuned laser pulses through the plasma — to identify and count these reactive molecules as they form and vanish during chip production. If successful, the work will replace empirical tweaking with predictive science. Manufacturers could optimise plasma recipes for faster, more precise etching, reducing defects in the billions of transistors on each chip. That translates directly into cheaper, more powerful electronics — from mobile phones to medical diagnostic equipment — and a stronger UK semiconductor supply chain. The project is fundamental science, but it targets a specific industrial bottleneck: the gap between what plasma models assume and what actually happens inside a fabrication chamber.