Standing surface waves in a dust-contaminated large-area planar plasma source

The effect of charged particulates or dusts on surface wave produced microw ave discharges is studied. The frequencies of the standing electromagnetic eigenmodes of large-area flat plasmas are calculated. The dusts absorb a si gnificant amount of the plasma electrons and can lead to a modification of the electromagnetic field structure in the discharge by shifting the origin ally excited operating mode out of resonance. For certain given proportions of dusts, mode conversion is found to be possible. The power loss in the d ischarge is also increased because of dust-specific dissipations, leading t o a decrease of the operating mode quality factor. (C) 1999 American Instit ute of Physics. [S0021-8979(99)08617-X].