Atmospheric pressure plasma chemical vapor deposition system for high-rate deposition of functional materials

Abstract

The atmospheric pressure plasma chemical vapor deposition (CVD) system has been developed to fabricate functional thin films at very high deposition rate. The atmospheric pressure plasma, in which high-density radicals are created, has been effectively used to deposit thin films. Combination of the newly designed rotary electrode and the 150 MHz very high frequency power supply makes it possible not only to generate the high-density atmospheric pressure plasma but also to avoid ion bombardment against the film. By virtue of these noble characteristics of the system, high quality films can be fabricated at an unprecedented high deposition rate. In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the atmospheric pressure plasma CVD system, hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) films were prepared in gas mixtures containing He, H2, and SiH4. The results showed that homogeneous a-Si:H films grew when substrates were heated at 200 °C. Extremely high deposition rate, which was more than 100 times faster than that of the conventional low-pressure plasma CVD technique, was realized.

A Nonequilibrium, Atmospheric‐Pressure Argon Plasma Torch for Deposition of Thin Silicon Dioxide Films

“…These include atmospheric-pressure (AP) dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) [1][2][3][4] as the most commonly used atmospheric-pressure discharge, AP plasma jet, [5,6] and AP plasma CVD (AP-PCVD). [7,8] However, most of them have used helium (He) as the working gas to generate the plasma. If the plasma can be generated by using argon (Ar) as the working gas, it will be of great benefit to the technique as Ar is much less expensive than He.…”

Formation of silicon dioxide layers at low temperatures (150—400°C) by atmospheric pressure plasma oxidation of silicon

“…During the last years, we have developed an atmospheric pressure plasma CVD (AP-PCVD) technique [3]. In the AP-PCVD process, stable glow plasmas, generated using very high frequency (VHF) electric field at atmospheric pressure, are effectively used to deposit thin films.…”

Nonequilibrium Atmospheric Plasma Deposition

“…-glow mode leads to higher deposition rates at similar powers per coated area unit, -deposited power per coated area unit remains small (below 10 W/cm 2 ), -deposition rates are always below 10 lm/h in filamentary mode, -deposition rates in glow mode are usually higher and can reach, at least in one case (Ref 55,56), extremely high values (several mm/h).…”

“…The common operational mode of atmospheric pressure DBD is filamentary (Ref 54,(57)(58)(59)(60)(61)(62)(63)(64)(65)(66)(67)71), resulting in strong spatial nonuniformity of plasma chemistry that can alter the quality of the films. On the contrary, glow DBD modes (Ref 53,55,56,(68)(69)(70)72), sometimes, referred to as low current atmospheric pressure Townsend-like discharge or high current atmospheric pressure glow-like discharge, are expected to give high quality films. This uniform mode of DBD is observed for a very restricted set of parameters such as gas mixture, dissipated power, operational frequency, etc.…”

“…In Table 1, we list a set of works (Ref [53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72] showing the various possibilities investigated to deposit thin films by low power sources. The common operational mode of atmospheric pressure DBD is filamentary (Ref 54,(57)(58)(59)(60)(61)(62)(63)(64)(65)(66)(67)71), resulting in strong spatial nonuniformity of plasma chemistry that can alter the quality of the films.…”