COMMERCIAL PLASMA SOURCE ION-IMPLANTATION FACILITY

Empire Hard Chrome, in cooperation with Los Alamos National Laboratory , has recently installed commercial plasma source ion implantation (PS II) equipment built by North Star Research Corporation. The PSII syste m consists of a 1 x 1 m cylindrical vacuum chamber with a pulsed RF pl asma source which generates plasma densities on the order of 1 x 10(10 ) cm(-3) while drawing only a few hundred watts of power. The high-vol tage pulse modulator is capable of delivering pulses with peak voltage s of 100 kV and peak currents of 300 A at maximum repetition rate of 4 00 Hz. The pulse modulator uses a thyratron tube to switch a purse for ming network which is tailored to match the dynamic PSII load, In this paper, we discuss the PSII system and early commercial applications t o production tooling. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science S.A.