Patent ID: 6946054

Claim:
A deposition baffle for protecting a dielectric window in a plasma processing chamber while facilitating inductive coupling of RF energy from a coil outside of the window, through the window and baffle, and into a plasma within the chamber, comprising: an electrically conductive body having a window side and a plasma side; the body having plurality of slots extending therethrough between the sides thereof; the slots having walls defined by surfaces of the body and configured to block line-of-sight paths through the body for particles in the chamber moving from the plasma side of the body to the window side of the body; a plurality of the slots each having an electrically conductive bridge therein fixed to the body and electrically interconnecting opposite walls of the slot to thereby interrupt the slot, on substantially only one of said sides of the body; and the bridges having connections to the body distributed on the baffle so as to improve the uniformity of the distribution of power coupled into the plasma through the baffle without limiting the effectiveness of inductive coupling through the baffle.