Long Plasma Production by a Radio-Frequency Discharge between Dielectric-Covered Parallel Electrodes

Abstract

The decay of an autoionising state (As) is considered in the presence of a resonance electromagnetic field (EMF) connecting the AS with some other level. It is shown that if the EMF is switched on suddenly the process of decay can be characterised by two constants which depend on frequency, intensity and polarisation of the EMF. One of these constants is always more or of about the order of the field-free autoionising width of the AS. However, if the EMF parameters obey some conditions the other decay constant can be much smaller than the field-free AS width. In this case the lifetime of the AS in the EMF as a whole can be much larger than the field-free lifetime of the AS, this means that there is a partial stabilisation of the AS. An increase in the AS lifetime is connected with a destructive interference between the autoionising and ionising transitions. However, there are always some 'non-interfering' transitions due to which stabilisation can never be absolute. The long living part of the AS population is shown to be rather small. If the EMF is switched on adiabatically there is only a simple one-exponential decay with only the characteristic decay time and there is no field-induced stabilisation.

A model of a large-area planar plasma producer based on surface wave propagation in a plasma-metal structure with a dielectric sheath

“…The regime of operation of such discharges depends on many factors, such as the geometry of the discharge, the kind and pressure of the operating gas, the configuration of the wave-exciting and -coupling structures (such as surfatrons, surfaguides, waveguide surfatrons and Ro-boxes [Z]) as well as on the selected type of travelling electromagnetic mode. Experiments [3,4] recently confirmed the possibility of plasma production between a pair of large-area planar metal electrodes coated with a dielectric sheath. Discharges of this kind have been shown to be useful in several semiconductor technologies for fabrication of large-area planar semiconductor structures for different purposes [4,5].…”

Modeling of a–Si:H deposition in a dc glow discharge reactor

“…~ 0.26, the sticking coefficient S = 0.09, which is quite a low value compared to the threshold value of Kushner, 5 m = 4.7 X 10~2 3 g, and p = 2.21 g/cm 3 . They calculated R d = 0.40 /tm/h for a SiH 4 /H 2 plasma at 80 mTorr and 125 W power deposition between a 3 cm gap.…”

“…3 A base pressure of 1.5 Torr was used and the gas, containing 1% SiH 4 , was fed at a rate of 10 cm/s. Figure 3 is a compounded presentation of the results for a 2 cm gap between the electrodes and for different voltages.…”

“…In particular, their 'Sunshine Project' 3 is aimed at the development of low-cost mass production techniques for fabricating a -S i : H solar cells. Another crucial development was the discovery in 1975 that the electronic properties of the glow discharge deposited material could be controlled very effectively by substitutional doping from the gas phase.…”

Investigation of Quartz Side Wall Influence on Radial Plasma Density Profiles in Low-Pressure Surface Wave Plasma Source

“…One of the most successful plasma sources used to produce uniform plasmas without the presence of a static magnetic field is the surface wave plasma source. Basically, there are two types of surface wave plasma source: planar sources [1][2][3][4] equipped with a plane quartz with a large area and plasma column sources [5][6][7][8] in which the plasma is produced in a long thin dielectric tube.…”