A. Mizuno et al., CHARACTERIZATION OF ULTRA-SHORT PULSED DISCHARGE PLASMA FOR CVD PROCESSING, IEEE transactions on industry applications, 29(3), 1993, pp. 656-660
Characteristics of pulsed discharge plasma of methane-hydrogen gas mix
ture and Ar gas have been studied for active control of plasma chemica
l vapor deposition (CVD) processing. Voltage-current characteristics,
time-lag of the current pulse, and the photon emission intensity profi
le have been investigated using high-voltage pulses of 50-1000 ns dura
tion. In such a pulse discharge, voltages much higher than those in a
dc glow discharge can be applied without any plasma nonuniformity or a
rcing because voltage amplitude falls to zero before glow to arc trans
ition. A current value of more than 10(3) times those in a glow discha
rge can be established. Very high photon emission intensity from CH ra
dicals and H ions have been observed near the anode in a pulsed plasma
. This is different in dc plasma, where the negative glow region near
the cathode is the brightest.