Aluminum/aluminum oxide structured microplasma devices: Paschen's Law and applications

摘要

Aluminum/aluminum oxide microplasma novel devices can be fabricated by sequences of inexpensive wet electrochemical processes and provide an attractive tool to study plasma physics by modifying the device geometry as desired. A wet electrochemical process, used for fabricating microscale cavities and developed at the Laboratory for Optical Physics and Engineering, provides an opportunity to investigate plasma characteristic dimensions decreasing toward ~ 1 ??m. In this thesis, basic background of the plasma physics and experimental techniques necessary for fabricating structured Al/Al2O3 devices is presented. In order to better understand and predict device performance as the characteristic dimensions decrease toward ~1 ??m, a specific experiment regarding the ignition voltage as a function of various device geometries and gas pressures is performed. The goal of this study is to determine if the fabricated Al/Al2O3 devices obey Paschen???s Law.