Ion Bombardment during the Deposition of SiO[sub X] by AC-Biasing in a Remote-Type Atmospheric Pressure Plasma System

Abstract

The effect of the additional ac-bias voltage applied to the substrate on the characteristics of the SiO X deposited using modified remote-type atmospheric pressure plasma at room temperature was investigated for the gas mixture of hexamethyldisilazane/O 2 /He/Ar. The addition and increase of ac-bias voltage not only increased the deposition rate but also improved the characteristics of the deposited SiO X . With the increase of ac-bias voltage to the substrate, the oxygen percentage in the film increased while the carbon percentage is decreased by increasing Si-O-Si bonding and by decreasing the impurity such as -͑CH 3 ͒ X in the deposited film. In addition, the hardness and the surface smoothness of the deposited film were also increased with the increase of the ac biasing. The improvement of the film properties was related to the ion bombardment effect in addition to the increased gas dissociation by the additional power absorption, which was caused by the ac biasing of the substrate.

Smooth, Chemically Altered Nucleating Platform for Abrupt Performance Enhancement of Ultrathin Cu-Layer-Based Transparent Electrodes

“…The results are summarized in Figure e based on the AFM areal scans shown in Figure f, and the line-surface profiles are provided in Figure S6. The results indicate that the ArP process is an efficient method of drastically reducing the surface roughness of ZnO layers (from the root-mean-square (RMS) value of 0.75 nm for NM-ZnO to 0.35 nm for ArP10-ZnO), which can be ascribed to the preferential atomic removal of the hills of the rough surface owing to the higher incoming Ar + flux during the ArP process. − The RMS value for the ArP10-ZnO layer is sufficiently close to the value of 0.20 nm for the bare glass substrate (Figure S7), and the realization of such a smooth ZnO layer surface and the subsequent ZnO/Cu interface is considered the major factor contributing to the retained reduction in the Cu layer resistivity in the postlayer-closure regime. In the proposed ArP10-ZCZ electrode configuration, the change in the thickness of the ZnO overlayer has a negligible effect on electron mobility (Figure S8).…”

Simultaneous Enhancement in Visible Transparency and Electrical Conductivity via the Physicochemical Alterations of Ultrathin-Silver-Film-Based Transparent Electrodes

“…It is noteworthy that the surface modification process also markedly reduced the surface irregularities of the TiO x underlayer, as shown in the magnified inset images in Figure b. This can be attributed to the preferential etching of the hills of the rough surface due to the higher flux of bombarding Ar + ions, − without observably reducing the TiO x layer thickness (Figure S2).…”

Atmospheric pressure plasmas for surface modification of flexible and printed electronic devices: A review

“…By using a multi-pin shaped, instead of a planar, electrode as the power electrode, a higher plasma density was obtained for the simple parallel plate DBD source and the remote DBD source shown in Figures 1(d) and (e), respectively, due to the concentration of the electric field near the tip area [10][11][12]. A double-discharge system composed of direct DBDs and remote DBDs was also investigated to improve the plasma density and gas dissociation, and to provide ion bombardment at the substrate [13][14].…”

“…In addition, inkjet printing is a potential low-temperature process that may enable manufacturing on flexible substrates. Also, it is compatible with continuous roll-to-roll processing and scales 14 more favorably with increasing substrate area than lithographic processes.…”

“…However, remote AP-DBD systems typically provide low deposition rates even when modified for higher plasma densities as in Figure 1(e). Therefore, a double-discharge DBD system has been proposed [13]; it is composed of a combined remote DBD and direct DBD source (grounded for a remote DBD In the double-discharge DBD system, Gil et al [14] demonstrated that the direct DBD formed on the substrate has a significant influence on the smoothness and hardness of SiO x thin films deposited on silicon wafers as shown in Figure 35 and 36(a), respectively. The hardness of the SiO x thin film was measured using a commercially available nanoindentation instrument (MTS, Nano-indenter II) with a normal load of 30 mN.…”