Microplasmas generated within cavities having the form of a truncated paraboloid, introduced by Kim et al (2009 Appl. Phys. Lett. 94 011503), have been simulated numerically with a two-dimensional, fluid computational model. Microcavities with parabolic sidewalls, fabricated in nanoporous alumina (Al2O3) and having upper (primary emitter) and lower apertures of 150 µm and 75 µm in diameter, respectively, are driven by a bipolar voltage waveform at a frequency of 200 kHz. For a Ne pressure of 500 Torr and 2 µs, 290 V pulses constituting each half-cycle of the driving voltage waveform, calculations predict that ∼10 nJ of energy is delivered to each parabolic cavity, of which 26–30% is consumed by the electrons. Once the cathode fall is formed, approximately 65% and 8% of the input energy is devoted to driving the atomic ion and dimer ion currents, respectively, and the peak electron density of ∼6 × 1012 cm−3 is attained ∼90 ns following the onset of the first half-cycle (positive) voltage pulse. Specific power loading of the microplasma reaches 150 kW cm−3 and the loss of power to the wall of the microcavity drops by as much as 24% when the excitation voltage is increased from 280 to 310 V. The diminished influence of diffusion with increasing pressure is responsible for wall losses at 600 Torr accounting for <20% of the total electron energy.

Carrier distributions near n-type epitaxially-grown Ge(100) surfaces with high impurity concentrations (1 × 1020 cm−3) were studied using high resolution electron energy loss spectroscopy (HREELS) upon surface treatments in aqueous solutions of HF and HCl. After surface treatments with HCl and HF, the molecular vibration modes distinctly showed either chloride or hydride terminations of Ge surfaces with negligible oxidation. The free-carrier concentration profile was inferred from the conduction band plasmon measurements as a function of the incident electron energies employing a dielectric theory simulation with a 4-layer structure and an effective electron mass of 0.02m0. A carrier-free layer of 40 and 24 Å were derived for HCl- and HF-treated Ge(100), respectively. The surface band bending was estimated to be 0.32 eV for HF-treated Ge. HCl-treated Ge surfaces showed a band bending of 0.91 eV attributed to the strong effect of the surface Cl-Ge dipole.