Title

Generation of Electron-Beam Produced Plasmas and Applications to Surface Modification

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-2004

Publication Source

Surface and Coatings Technology

Abstract

NRL has developed a number of hollow cathodes to generate sheets of electrons culminating in a ‘Large Area Plasma Processing System’ (LAPPS) based on the electron-beam ionization process. Beam ionization is fairly independent of gas composition and produces low temperature plasma electrons (9–1012 cm−3). The present system consists of a pulsed planar plasma distribution generated by a magnetically collimated sheet of 2 kV electrons (/cm2) injected into a neutral background of processing gases (oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur hexafluoride, argon). Operating pressures range from 2–13 Pa with 150–165 Gauss magnetic fields for a highly localized plasma density of ∼1011 cm−3. This plasma source demonstrated anisotropic removal rates of polymeric (photoresist) material and silicon with O2 and Ar/O2/SF6 mixtures, respectively. In pure nitrogen, this same source showed a surface nitriding rate of ∼1 μm/h of plasma exposure time on austenitic stainless steel at 400 °C. Time-resolved in situ plasma diagnostics (Langmuir probes and mass spectrometry) of these pulsed plasmas are also shown to illustrate the general plasma characteristics.

Inclusive pages

682–687

ISBN/ISSN

0257-8972

Comments

Permission documentation is on file.

Publisher

Elsevier

Volume

177-178

Peer Reviewed

yes

Link to Full Text

Share

COinS