AVS 49th International Symposium
    Plasma Science Tuesday Sessions
       Session PS-TuM

Invited Paper PS-TuM2
Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Processing

Tuesday, November 5, 2002, 8:40 am, Room C-103

Session: Atmospheric Pressure and Other Emerging Plasma Applications
Presenter: R.F. Hicks, University of California, Los Angeles
Authors: R.F. Hicks, University of California, Los Angeles
G.R. Nowling, University of California, Los Angeles
M. Moravej, University of California, Los Angeles
X. Yang, University of California, Los Angeles
G. Ding, Applied Materials
S.E. Babayan, Surfx Technologies LLC
Correspondent: Click to Email
Atmospheric pressure plasma discharges have emerged as exciting new tools for materials processing. There are many different sources to choose from depending on the application, including dielectric barrier discharges, microwave plasmas, transferred arcs and inert-gas-stabilized capacitive discharges. At UCLA, we have developed a novel low-temperature plasma source, in which reagent gases are mixed with helium or argon and passed through two closely spaced, perforated electrodes. By applying radio frequency power at 13.56 to 100.0 MHz to one of the electrodes, the gas becomes ionized with the dissociation of about 1% of the reagent molecules into atoms and radicals. This source exhibits a charged particle density of about 10^11 cm^-3 and an electron temperature from 2 to 4 eV. By contrast, the neutral temperature ranges from 300 to 450 K, depending on the process conditions. Many different gas mixtures may be fed through the source, including oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, carbon tetrafluoride, ammonia, etc. The concentration of ground-state atoms, e.g., O or N, varies from about 1.0 to 10.0 x10^15 cm^-3. These species may be used to drive a variety of downstream surface treatment processes, including polymer activation, organic residue removal, glass or metal etching, and chemical vapor deposition. At the meeting, I will briefly review atmospheric pressure plasma sources, and then describe our work on the physics and chemistry of these systems.