Individual ignition of RF microplasma array at atmospheric pressure

Abstract

Following the trend of miniaturisation in semiconductor industry, atmospheric plasma jets in array configuration were developed for cleaning or treatment of workpieces under homogeneous conditions. We describe here the first development of a small array of 5 individual identical plasma cells where each cell is ignited and quenched individually, which can be upscaled to several tens or hundreds of cells. The power electronics for ignition of plasma is composed of a multiplexing system with a kHz high voltage plasma ignition pulse and an RF-supply which can be distributed to each ignited cell to maintain the plasma in the respective cell. Experimental results show an ignition voltage for argon of 1300 V, and RF-current per cell of 70 mA.