Externally driven, vertically polarized transverse dust-lattice waves were observed in a one-dimensional strongly coupled dust chain levitated in the plasma-sheath boundary of a dc argon plasma at low gas pressure around 5 mtorr. Real and imaginary parts of the complex wave number were measured in the experiments. The experimental result clearly shows that the observed transverse dust-lattice wave propagates as a backward wave, which is in good agreement with the theoretical prediction.

A variety of dynamic behaviors in dusty plasmas is expected under the experimental condition of weak friction with gas molecules. The device “KAGEROU” provides such an environment for dynamic collective phenomena. Self-excited dust oscillations in Coulomb crystals have been observed at low values of plasma density and gas pressure. An instability mechanism was identified to be delayed charging in an inhomogeneous equilibrium dust charge in the sheath. The theoretical growth rate was formulated in relation to the destabilization of a transverse dust lattice wave (T-DLW), which was found to be very sensitive to the presence of a small amount of hot electrons which produces a substantial positive equilibrium charge gradient ∇Qd-eq around the equilibrium position of dust particles in the plasma–sheath boundary. The first experimental observation of a correlated self-excited vertical oscillations in a one-dimensional dust chain indicates a destabilization of T-DLW. The experimental condition is very consistent with the parameter area which predicts numerically an instability of T-DLW.

We report on structural and electrical properties of tantalum penta oxide (Ta2O5) material with a high dielectric constant grown from a penta ethoxy tantalum [Ta(OC2H5)5] liquid source by the plasma-enhanced liquid source chemical vapor deposition (PE-LS-CVD) technique. We have investigated several basic plasma deposition conditions. Structural properties investigated by θ-2θ X-ray measurements showed the amorphous nature of the films, and Auger electron spectrosopy (AES) and secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS) indicated growth of Ta2O5 films having proper stoichiometry (Ta/O=0.4). Optical transmission spectroscopy showed that the band gap (E g) of Ta2O5 is 5.28 eV. Electrical measurements performed on Au/Ta2O5/n, p-Si metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) structure exhibited very well defined capacitance-voltage (C-V) characteristics with flat band voltage as low as -0.1 eV, low leakage current, high breakdown voltage and high dielectric constant (25-38). As a hitherto unreported step in Ta2O5 processing we also performed rapid thermal (RTA) annealing at 700°C and 900°C for 5 min which resulted in much improved electrical properties. All results suggest growth of high-quality Ta2O5 films from a carbon-based Ta liquid source, due to an effect of plasma-enhanced deposition process.

We extend our previous formulation of low-energy QCD in terms of an effective lagrangean containing operators of dimensionality d ≤ 6 constructed with pseudoscalars and quark fields, describing physics below the scale of chiral symmetry breaking. We include in this paper the vector and axial-vector channels. We follow closely the Extended Chiral Quark Model approach and consistently work in the large-N c and leading log approximation and take into account the constraints from chiral symmetry and chiral symmetry restoration. The optimal fit of all parameters gives further support to a heavy scalar meson with a mass ∼ 1 GeV and a value of the axial pion-quark coupling constant g A 0.55 to 0.66, depending on some assumptions concerning the Weinberg sum rules.

For quartermicron lithography, fine pattern etching of bilayer resist was investigated using O2/N2 supermagnetron plasma. The maximum etch rate was obtained at a radio frequency (rf) phase difference of 150°–180° which was observed between two rf powers of the same frequency supplied to two parallel electrodes. The side etchings of resist walls were reduced by lowering the electrode (wafer) temperature to −30 °C. By the increment of N2 concentration from 0% to 60%, the etch rate decreased little, and the side etchings of resist walls became only ±0.015 μm at a self-bias voltage Vdc of −140 to −180 V. Microloading effect was greatly improved by lowering a wafer temperature to −30 °C and by increasing Vdc to −180 V.