MICROSTRUCTURED ELECTRODE ARRAYS FOR THIN FILM DEPOSITION

摘要

Non-thermal plasma processing techniques have been established for a wide range of applications. Micro-structured electrode (MSE) arrays consist of an interlocked comb like electrode system with μm-gap widths. The electrode dimensions in the μm-range are realized by photolithography and galvanic techniques. These arrays are capable to generate large area uniform glow discharges up to atmospheric pressure. They are small enough to generate sufficiently high electric field strengths to ignite gas discharges applying only moderate radio frequency voltages (RF, 13.56 MHz, 80 V to 390 V in Ne, He, Ar and N_2). One area of application for non-thermal plasma processing is thin film deposition. With the MSE arrays as plasma source some applications in the field of thin film deposition are investigated and found to produce adequate SiO_2 layers on various substrates. The properties of the layers are characterized by profilometry, ellipsometry, scanning electron microscopy and infrared spectroscopy.