Patent ID: 7883632

Claim:
A plasma processing method for a plasma processing apparatus having a substrate processing chamber that has therein a processing space into which a substrate is transferred and is configured to carry out plasma processing on the substrate in the processing space, a first electrode that is disposed in the substrate processing chamber and is connected to a radio frequency power source, and a second electrode that has an exposed portion exposed to the processing space and is electrically insulated from the substrate processing chamber and the first electrode, the method comprising: a relation obtaining step of obtaining in advance a relationship between a thickness of a deposit film to be removed and a required value of the DC voltage to be applied to the second electrode by determining a value of the DC voltage at which the deposit film can be removed but the second electrode itself is not sputtered for each of a plurality of deposit film thicknesses; and a voltage value determining step of determining a value of the DC voltage applied to the second electrode from processing conditions for a plasma processing to be carried out, based on the obtained relationship; and a DC voltage application step of applying the DC voltage to the second electrode without supplying a radio frequency power to the second electrode.