Single and double Langmuir probe analyses have been realized in the wafer region of an electron cyclotron resonance reactor in its distributed configuration. Results in nitrogen gas have shown unambiguously that two electron populations exist in this region: one with low temperature (about 1–2eV) and high density and the second with higher temperature (about 8 eV) and lower density. Measurements in silicon nitride deposition plasma (nitrogen and silane gases) have been successfully realized and have shown that these two populations are also present. Finally, we try to correlate the plasma parameters (electron temperatures and densities and ions’ energy) to the deposited film parameters (deposition rate and refractive index). ©1998 American Institute of Physics.