Solution plasma is a new electrical discharge process where an atmospheric non-equilibrium plasma is generated, usually at room temperature, in a liquid environment, such as an aqueous solution or an organic compound. There are a large variety of combinations used in experiments among solutions, electrode materials, plasma configurations, volumes, and reactor geometries, as well as the characteristics of the power supply. The solution plasma process (SPP) combines gas discharge physics, fluid thermodynamic properties, and fluid interfaces reactions. In SPP, nanoparticles with various sizes, shapes, crystallinities, and compositions could be obtained. The synthesis of carbon and hetero-carbon nanomaterials proves that SPP is an efficient and rapid method for their production. The polymerization of benzene in SPP can form graphene. By simply changing the organic precursor, carbon-doped nanostructures can be synthesized with a controlled composition. This review demonstrates that SPP is a new reaction field for nanomaterial production.

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Reactive ion etching (RIE) damage in contact hole etching is studied. The significant oxidation retardation layer (ORL) on Si surfaces is observed followed by high V pp (peak-to-peak voltage of 380 kHz RF) RIE. The depth of the ORL is linearly proportional to V pp, and it consists of a Si–C bond layer, according to X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis. The increase in contact resistance is found to be due to the existence of the ORL, using the sacrificial oxidation method and secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS) analysis. The etch chemistries based on fluorocarbon-containing gas mixtures are characterized in terms of contact resistance and ORL. When hydride-containing gas mixtures are used in RIE, the contact resistance is low and the ORL depth is small. When CO-containing gas mixtures are used, the contact resistance is high and ORL depth is large. These different properties result from the different amounts of carbon implanted at the silicon surface.

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