Radek Přikryl, Vladimír Čech, Jan Studýnka

Burning conditions of non-thermal Ar-plasma at continuous and pulsed mode

Czechoslovak Journal of Physics 56 (2006) B1320-B1325

A new capacitively coupling system has been developed for the plasma treatment and film coating of planar substrates. The system with a bottom rotary electrode and an upper grounded shower-type electrode can be evacuated to the basic vacuum of 10(-6) Pa using a turbomolectilar pump. A side load lock can be used to feed the bottom electrode by six substrates (double-side polished silicon wafer 10 x 10 x 0.6 mm(3)) using a magnetic drive. The reactor was equipped by an RF power supply of 1000 W (13.56 MHz) operated in continuous and pulsed mode. The distance between both the electrodes can be positioned from 20mm to 60mm. Discharge conditions of Ar-plasma have been determined with respect to the argon flow-rate (2 divided by 50 seem), pressure (0.5 divided by 50 Pa) and RF power of continuous (1300 W) and pulsed (0.1 divided by 300 W) mode for two distances of the electrodes (30 and 60mm). Processing chart pressure vs. power has been constructed in order to found out conditions for stable Ar-plasma. The stability of glow discharge was observed by phototransistor, sensitive in the range 300 divided by 850 nm. The self-bias of the bottom electrode was monitored as a function of the RF power, flow-rate and pressure as well.

Cited Articles

1. Přikryl R., Čech V., Zajíčková L., Vaněk J., Behzadi S., Jones R.,
   Mechanical and Optical Properties of Plasma-Polymerized Vinyltriethoxysilane,
   Surface and Coatings Technology 200 (2005) 468–471