| AVS 62nd International Symposium & Exhibition | |
| Plasma Science and Technology | Monday Sessions |
| Session PS+SE-MoM |
| Session: | Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Processing I |
| Presenter: | Michael Wertheimer, Groupe des Couches Minces (GCM) and Department of Engineering Physics, Polytechnique Montréal, Canada |
| Authors: | B. Nisol, Groupe des Couches Minces (GCM) and Department of Engineering Physics, Polytechnique Montréal, Canada M. Archambault-Caron, Groupe des Couches Minces (GCM) and Department of Engineering Physics, Polytechnique Montréal H. Gagnon, Groupe des Couches Minces (GCM) and Department of Engineering Physics, Polytechnique Montréal S. Lerouge, Department of Mechanical Engineering, École de Technologie Supérieure (ETS), and Centre de Recherche du CHUM (CRCHUM) M.R. Wertheimer, Groupe des Couches Minces (GCM) and Department of Engineering Physics, Polytechnique Montréal, Canada |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
A specially designed dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) cell and associated equipment has been used to carry out precise measurements of electrical energy, Eg, dissipated per discharge cycle of the applied a.c. voltage, Va, over the frequency range 5 ≤ f ≤ 50 kHz. Twin pairs of several different dielectric materials (2.54 cm diameter discs, thicknesses = 2.0 or ca. 0.1 mm) with relative permittivities between 2.1 ≤ K'≤ 9.5 were used as dielectric barriers in DBDs of four different gases: He, Ne, Ar and N2. Much of the work relates to the study of atmospheric pressure glow discharge (APGD) plasma in flowing He gas; five separate thermometers (including fiber-optic probes immune to high voltage and high-frequency electromagnetic fields) have enabled us to perform a detailed calorimetric (heat balance) investigation in He APGD, believed to be the first of its kind. Fair agreement in the overall energy balance, which includes vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) light emission, lends strong support to the validity of both measurements and methodology. The latter includes refined algorithms that permit rapid data acquisition and processing. The present results are compared with literature, allowing several important conclusions / recommendations to emerge.
Next, we turn to the particular case of DBD in Ar in a pilot-scale reactor dedicated to deposition of thin organic films (PECVD) for biomedical applications. We have found that transfer of data from the small to the large (near 50-fold greater surface area) apparatus has been very successful, and that we can now precisely measure the amount of energy (ΔEg) consumed in a particular PECVD process. We finish by presenting specific example reactions and link energy measurements with physico-chemical characteristics of deposits.