This book is intended to introduce plasma processing and technology, so that the reader can readily understand the issues involved in processing and can immediately access the state-of-the-art literature. The reader is not assumed to have any knowledge of plasmas, but only some undergraduate background in basic electromagnetism. In fact, wherever possible the treatment even avoids quoting results from one part of the book for use in another part. In many cases it develops new ideas more than once, each time they are needed, to make the discussion easier to follow.

Plasma reactors and the physical and chemical processes that take place in them are discussed in considerable detail, the main emphasis being on capacitive, inductive, and electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) reactors. However, this is an area in which there are few simple (or perhaps even right) answers. It is not usually possible to give a complete description of a plasma reactor, so we are largely concerned, here, with showing how one should go about thinking about what is happening in the reactor.

The chapters of the book are organized in the order in which we need to consider material to understand the reactor. This can sometimes mean that we do not treat a single topic in one chapter separately from other topics. Instead, subject matter will often be introduced where it is needed as we build up the picture of how systems work.