| AVS 59th Annual International Symposium and Exhibition | |
| Plasma Science and Technology | Monday Sessions |
| Session PS+EM-MoM |
| Session: | Atmospheric Plasma Processing and Micro Plasmas |
| Presenter: | R. Dussart, GREMI - Polytech Orleans/CNRS, France |
| Authors: | R. Dussart, GREMI - Polytech Orleans/CNRS, France M. Kulsreshath, GREMI - Polytech Orleans/CNRS, France L. Schwaederle, GREMI - Polytech Orleans/CNRS, France V. Felix, GREMI - Polytech Orleans/CNRS, France P. Lefaucheux, GREMI - Polytech Orleans/CNRS, France O. Aubry, GREMI - Polytech Orleans/CNRS, France T. Tillocher, GREMI - Polytech Orleans/CNRS, France S. Sozias, GREMI - Polytech Orleans/CNRS, France L.J. Overzet, University of Texas at Dallas |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Arrays of microreactors built from silicon wafers in clean room facilities were first proposed and developed about ten years ago by G. Eden's team [1]. They consist of Micro Hollow Cathode Discharges (MHCD) operating in parallel in DC or in AC. One of the remarkable properties of these MHCDs relies on the fact that they can operate in DC, in a stable regime at atmospheric pressure, without evolving to an arc regime [2]. Potential applications of these new technological devices are numerous and include different domains such as lighting, detection, local treatments, sensors, lab on chip, treatment and micromachining processing, instrumentation… In this paper, we will focus on DC operation of microdischarges working in helium or in argon. The microreactor geometry was investigated to achieve the best results in terms of life time and ignition. Although we were able to ignite up to 1024 microdischarges (100 µm diameter holes), we observed many spikes on the current waveform, which indicate that microplasmas are not so stable. The quite short life time of our microdevices which varies from few minutes to few hours could be linked to these spikes, which actually cause significant damages. Taking into account our observations by Scanning Electron Microscope, our optical characterization and our electrical measurements, we propose a mechanism explaining the appearance of the damages, which shorten the lifetime of our microdischarges. Finally, we will give some indications to delay the damage mechanisms and to increase the life time of the microplasma arrays.
References
[1] J G Eden, S-J Park, N P Ostrom, S T McCain, C J Wagner, B A Vojak, J Chen, C Liu, P von Allmen, F Zenhausern, D J Sadler, C Jensen, D L Wilcox and J J Ewing, J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 36 2869–2877 (2003)
[2] K. H. Schoenbach, R. Verhappen, T. Tessnow, P. F. Peterkin, W. Byszewski, Appl. Phys. Lett. 68, 13 (1996)