• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
• /
• 제39권4호
• /
• pp.409-412
• /
• 2002

Under atmospheric pressure, apparently homogeneous and stable plasma can be generated from insulator barrier rf plasma generators each of which has an rf powered cathode and a grounded anode covered with a dielectric insulating material. In order to characterize the generating plasma under atmospheric pressure, some basic characteristic have been evaluated by the Langmuire probe method as well as by optical emission spectroscopy. From the result of plasma characteristics, the generated plasma was verified to be nonequilibrium; T(electron)>T(excitation)>T(gas). High rate Si(100) etching (($1.5{\mu}m$/min) were achieved by using He plasma containing a small amount of $CF_4$.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
• /
• 제29권5호
• /
• pp.371-378
• /
• 1996

An RF inductively coupled plasma (ICP) torch has been developed as a typical thermal plasma generator and reactor. It has been applied to various materials processings such as plasma flash evaporation, thermal plasma CVD, plasma spraying, and plasma waste disposal. The RF ICP reactor has been generally operated under one atmospheric pressure. Lately the characteristics of low pressure RF ICP is attracting a great deal of attention in the field of plasma application. In our researches of RF plasma applications, low pressure RF ICP is mainly used. In many cases, the plasma generated by the ICP torch under low pressure seems to be rather capacitive, but high density ICP can be easily generated by our RF plasma torch with 3 turns coil and a suitable maching circuiit, using 13.56 MHz RF generator. Plasma surface modification (surface hardening by plasma nitriding and plasma carbo-nitriding), plasma synthesis of AIN, and plasma CVD of BN, B-C-N compound and diamond were practiced by using low pressure RF plasma, and the effects of negative and positive bias voltage impression to the substrate on surface modification and CVD were investigated in details. Only a part of the interesting results obtained is reported in this paper.

• International Journal of Precision Engineering and Manufacturing
• /
• 제9권2호
• /
• pp.39-43
• /
• 2008

Atmospheric pressure plasma polishing (APPP) is a noncontact precision machining technology that uses low temperature plasma chemical reactions to perform atom-scale material removal. APPP is a complicated process, which is affected by many factors. Through a preliminary theoretical analysis and simulation, we confirmed that some of the key factors are the radio frequency (RF) power, the working distance, and the gas ratio. We studied the influence of the RF power and gas ratio on the removal rate using atomic emission spectroscopy, and determined the removal profiles in actual operation using a commercial form talysurf. The experimental results agreed closely with the theoretical simulations and confirmed the effect of the working distance. Finally, we determined the element compositions of the machined surfaces under different gas ratios using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy to study the influence of the gas ratio in more detail. We achieved a surface roughness of Ra 0.6 nm on silicon wafers with a peak removal rate of approximately 32 $mm^{3}$/min.

• Applied Science and Convergence Technology
• /
• 제26권4호
• /
• pp.74-78
• /
• 2017

The discharge characteristics of the radio frequency (RF) surface dielectric barrier discharge have been simulated for the investigation of the ratio of the ion transit time to the RF period. From one-dimensional particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation for a planar dielectric barrier discharge (DBD), it was observed that the high-frequency driving voltage confines the ions in the plasma because of a shorter RF period than the ion transit time. For two-dimensional surface dielectric barrier discharges, a fluid simulation is performed to investigate the characteristics of RF discharges from 1 MHz to 40 MHz. The ratio of the peak density to the average density decreases with the increasing frequency, and the spatiotemporal discharge patterns change abruptly with the change in the ratio of ion transit time to the RF period.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
• /
• 제16권9호
• /
• pp.543-549
• /
• 2006

Polyimides (PI) are treated with $He/O_2$ and $He/O_2/NF_3$ atmospheric pressure rf dielectric barrier discharge in order to investigate the roles of $NF_3$ that is one of the PI etching gases. Surface changes are analyzed by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and contact angle measurement. The surface roughness of PI and the ratio of C=O, which is hydrophilic functional group, is more increased by $He/O_2/NF_3$ discharge than by $He/O_2$ discharge. The C=O species on the PI surface is increased up to 30 percent with rf power. The surface roughness of PI is increased from 0.4 to 11 nm with rf power. The water drop contact angles on PI, however, are reduced from $65^{\circ}\;to\;9^{\circ}$ by plasma treatment independently of $NF_3$.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
• /
• 한국진공학회 2012년도 제43회 하계 정기 학술대회 초록집
• /
• pp.268-268
• /
• 2012

Atmospheric pressure microwave induced plasmas are used to excite and ionize chemical species for elemental analysis, for plasma reforming, and for plasma surface treatment. Microwave plasma differs significantly from other plasmas and has several interesting properties. For example, the electron density is higher in microwave plasma than in radio-frequency (RF) or direct current (DC) plasma. Several types of radical species with high density are generated under high electron density, so the reactivity of microwave plasma is expected to be very high [1]. Therefore, useful applications of atmospheric pressure microwave plasmas are expected. The surface characteristics of SUS304 stainless steel are investigated before and after surface modification by microwave plasma under atmospheric pressure conditions. The plasma device was operated by power sources with microwave frequency. We used a device based on a coaxial transmission line resonator (CTLR). The atmospheric pressure plasma jet (APPJ) in the case of microwave frequency (880 MHz) used Ar as plasma gas [2]. Typical microwave Pw was 3-10 W. To determine the optimal processing conditions, the surface treatment experiments were performed using various values of Pw (3-10 W), treatment time (5-120 s), and ratios of mixture gas (hydrogen peroxide). Torch-to-sample distance was fixed at the plasma edge point. Plasma treatment of a stainless steel plate significantly affected the wettability, contact angle (CA), and free energy (mJ/$m^2$) of the SUS304 surface. CA and ${\gamma}$ were analyzed. The optimal surface modification parameters to modify were a power of 10 W, a treatment time of 45 s, and a hydrogen peroxide content of 0.6 wt% [3]. Under these processing conditions, a CA of just $9.8^{\circ}$ was obtained. As CA decreased, wettability increased; i.e. the surface changed from hydrophobic to hydrophilic. From these results, 10 W power and 45 s treatment time are the best values to minimize CA and maximize ${\gamma}$.

• Polymer(Korea)
• /
• 제29권6호
• /
• pp.581-587
• /
• 2005

Commercial polyurethane film (PU) was modified with Ar plasma ionized in dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plate-type reactor under atmospheric pressure. We measured the change of the contact angle and the surface fee energy with respect to the plasma treatment conditions such as treatment time, RF-power, and Ar gas flow rate. We also optimized the plasma treatment conditions to maximize the surface peroxide concentration. At the plasma treatment time of 70 sec, the power of 120 W and the Ar gas flow rate of 5 liter per minute (LPM), the best wettability and the highest surface fee energy were obtained. The 1,1 diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) method confirmed that the surface peroxide concentration was about 2.1 nmol/$\cm^{2}$ at 80 W, 30 sec, 6 LPM.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
• /
• 제15권2호
• /
• pp.117-138
• /
• 2006

Plasmas can be made by electrical discharge on earth. Most of the plasmas on earth have been generated in low pressure environments where the pressure is less than one millionth of the atmospheric pressure. However, there are many plasma applications which require high pressure plasmas. Therefore, scientists start research on plasma generation at high pressure to avoid use of expensive vacuum equipments. Large-volume inexpensive plasmas are needed in the areas of material processing, environmental protection and improvement, efficient energy source and applications, etc. We therefore developed new methods of plasma generations at high pressure and carried out research of applying these plasmas to high tech industries representing 21 century. These research fields will play pivotal roles in material, environmental and energy science and technology in future.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
• /
• 제16권4호
• /
• pp.59-62
• /
• 2017

In this paper, atmospheric pressure plasma treatment was proposed for high performance indium gallium zinc oxide thin film transistor (IGZO TFT). RF Ar plasma treatment is performed at room temperature under atmospheric pressure as a simple and cost effective channel surface treatment method. The experimental results show that field effect mobility can be enhanced by $2.51cm^2/V{\cdot}s$ from $1.69cm^2/V{\cdot}s$ to $4.20cm^2/V{\cdot}s$ compared with a conventional device without plasma treatment. From X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis, the increase of oxygen vacancies and decrease of metal-oxide bonding are observed, which suggests that the suggested atmospheric Ar plasma treatment is a cost-effective useful process method to control the IGZO TFT performance.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
• /
• 제19권1호
• /
• pp.22-27
• /
• 2010

To improve surface wettability, each sample was treated by atmospheric pressure plasma (APP) using dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) system. Argon and oxygen gases were used for treatment gas to modify the $TiO_2$ surface by APP with RF power range from 50 to 200 W. Water contact angle was decreased from $20^{\circ}$ to $10^{\circ}$ with argon only. However, water contact angle was decreased from $20^{\circ}$ to < $1^{\circ}$ with mixture of argon and oxygen. Water contact angle with $O_2$ plasma was lower than water contact angle with Ar plasma at the same RF power. It seems to be increasing the polar force of $TiO_2$ surface. Also, analysis result of X-ray photoelectron spectra (XPS) shows the increase of intensity of O1s shoulder peak, resulting in increasing of surface wettability by APP. Moreover, each water contact angle increased according to increase past time. However, contact angle increase with plasma treatment was lower than without plasma treatment. Additionally, the efficiency of $TiO_2$ photocatalyst was improved by plasma surface-treatment through the degradation experiment of phenol.