General Physics Seminar Thursday 21 February 2002

Fundamentals and Technology of Plasma Deposition

Erwin Kessels

Center for Plasma Physics and Radiation Technology, Dept. of Applied Physics
Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands


Plasmas are unique in the sense that they can deliver a high, diverse but selective reactivity to a surface, without heat, and therefore they can access a parameter space in materials processing unattainable by strictly chemical methods. The field of plasma deposition is one important example of what can be realized by plasmas both in technological and economical sense because it enables the fabrication of functional thin films at low temperatures and with sufficient production throughput having therefore also a lot of potential for lower-added value applications.

In this presentation, I will address a few state-of-the-art technological issues of plasma deposition in this respect and I will concentrate on silicon- and carbon-based thin films. I will start with some promising industrial applications of the in Eindhoven developed Expanding Thermal Plasma (e.g., high-rate deposition of silicon nitride for solar cells) but I will soon switch to important generic fundamental aspects of the deposition process such as the influence of growth precursors on film quality, hydrogen elimination from the films, and bulk defect incorporation. From this, I will try to point out that the exploration of all possibilities of plasma deposition requires the investigation of all aspects of the process, including plasma chemistry, plasma-surface interaction, and surface reactions.