AVS 52nd International Symposium
    Plasma Science and Technology Tuesday Sessions
       Session PS-TuP

Paper PS-TuP27
Electron Beam-Generated Plasmas Produced in Nitrogen and Applications to Materials Processing

Tuesday, November 1, 2005, 4:00 pm, Room Exhibit Hall C&D

Session: Plasma Science and Technology Poster Session
Presenter: S.G. Walton, US Naval Research Laboratory
Authors: S.G. Walton, US Naval Research Laboratory
D. Leonhardt, US Naval Research Laboratory
R.F. Fernsler, US Naval Research Laboratory
C. Muratore, US Air Force Research Laboratory
Correspondent: Click to Email
Electron beam-generated plasmas produced in a nitrogen background have several unique characteristics that make them attractive for materials processing applications that utilize nitrogen species. The US Naval Research Laboratory has developed a plasma processing system that relies on a magnetically collimated, sheet of multi-kilovolt electrons to ionize the background gas and produce a planar plasma. High-energy electron beams are efficient at producing high-density plasmas (n@sub e@ > 10@super 11@ cm@super -3@) with low electron temperatures (T@sub e@ < 0.5 eV) over the volume of the beam, resulting in large fluxes of low-energy ions (< 4 eV) at surfaces located adjacent to the electron beam. Of particular interest to nitrogen-based processing applications are the relative concentrations of atomic ions, molecular ions, and radicals, which are significantly different from other plasma sources. Large atomic-to-molecular ion flux ratios (>1) and radical-to-ion fluxes ratios are possible using simple adjustments to system operation, such as substrate position or plasma duty factor. In this work, we discuss in situ plasma diagnostics of pulsed, electron beam-generated plasmas produced in pure nitrogen and nitrogen mixtures. A Langmuir probe and a dual energy/mass analyzer is used to provide a spatio-temporal description of the processing system. The diagnostic results are correlated to the latest results from materials processing applications under study in our laboratory including metal nitriding, reactive sputter deposition, and polymer modification. This work was supported by the Office of Naval Research.