Focused beams of fast neutral atoms in glow discharge plasma
Glow discharge with electrostatic confinement of electrons in a vacuum chamber allows plasma processing of conductive products in a wide pressure range of p = 0.01 – 5 Pa. To assist processing of a small dielectric product with a concentrated on its surface beam of fast neutral atoms, which do not c...
Gespeichert in:
Veröffentlicht in: | Journal of applied physics 2017-06, Vol.121 (22) |
---|---|
Hauptverfasser: | , , , |
Format: | Artikel |
Sprache: | eng |
Schlagworte: | |
Online-Zugang: | Volltext |
Tags: |
Tag hinzufügen
Keine Tags, Fügen Sie den ersten Tag hinzu!
|
Zusammenfassung: | Glow discharge
with electrostatic confinement of electrons in a vacuum chamber allows plasma processing of conductive products in a wide
pressure range
of p = 0.01 – 5 Pa. To assist processing of a small dielectric product
with a concentrated on its surface beam of fast neutral atoms, which do not cause
charge effects, ions from the discharge
plasma are
accelerated towards the product and transformed into fast atoms. The beam is produced using a
negatively biased cylindrical or a spherical grid immersed in the plasma. Ions accelerated by
the grid turn into fast neutral atoms at p > 0.1 Pa due to charge
exchange collisions with gas atoms in the space charge sheaths adjoining the grid. The
atoms form a diverging neutral beam and a converging beam propagating from
the grid in opposite directions. The beam propagating from the concave surface of a
0.24-m-wide cylindrical grid is focused on a target within a 10-mm-wide stripe, and the
beam from
the 0.24-m-diameter spherical grid is focused within a 10-mm-diameter circle. At the bias
voltage U = 5 kV and p ∼ 0.1 Pa, the energy of fast
argon atoms is distributed continuously from zero to eU ∼ 5 keV. The
pressure
increase to 1 Pa results in the tenfold growth of their equivalent current and a decrease
in the mean energy by an order of magnitude, which substantially raises the efficiency of
material etching. Sharpening by the beam of ceramic knife-blades proved that the new
method for the generation of concentrated fast atom beams can be effectively
used for the processing of dielectric materials in vacuum. |
---|---|
ISSN: | 0021-8979 1089-7550 |
DOI: | 10.1063/1.4985249 |