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Notes: Optical emission and absorption spectroscopy and double Langmuir probe diagnostics have been applied to measure the plasma parameters of an expanding magnetized hydrogen plasma jet. The rotational temperature of the excited state H2(d2Πu) has been determined by analyzing the intensity distribution of the spectral lines of the Fulcher-α system of H2. The gas temperature in the plasma, which is twice the value of the rotational temperature is equal to (approximately-equal-to) 520 K. Several clear indications of presence of the "hot'' electrons have been observed in the plasma: (1) Langmuir probe measurements (Te(approximately-equal-to)1.4 eV), (2) appearance of the Fulcher-α system of H2 (excitation potential ΔE=13.87 eV), (3) low rotational temperature (T*rot(approximately-equal-to)260 K) of the excited H2(d3Πu) molecules, (4) local excitation in the plasma of Ar I(ΔE=15.45 eV), and Ar II(ΔE=19.68 eV) spectral lines, (5) local excitation in the plasma of He I(ΔE=23.07 eV and ΔE=24.04 eV) spectral lines. Optical actinometry has been applied to measure the absolute density of hydrogen atoms and hydrogen dissociation degree in the plasma. The measured absolute density of hydrogen atoms are in the (1–1.4)×1020 m−3 range, and the corresponding dissociation degree of the hydrogen plasma is in the range of 8%–13%. © 1996 American Institute of Physics.

Notes: Amorphous hydrogenated carbon films have been deposited on crystalline silicon and on glass from an expanding thermal plasma. Two deposition parameters have been varied: the electric current through the plasma source and the admixed acetylene flow. No energetic ion bombardment has been applied during deposition. Ex situ analysis of the films yields the infrared refractive index, hardness, Young's modulus, optical band gap, bonded hydrogen content, and the total hydrogen and mass density. The infrared refractive index describes the film properties independent of which plasma deposition parameter (arc current or acetylene flow) has been varied. The hardness, Young's modulus, sp2/sp3 ratio, and mass density increase with increasing refractive index. The optical band gap and hydrogen content of the films decrease with increasing refractive index. It is demonstrated that plasma-beam-deposited diamondlike a-C:H has similar properties as material deposited with conventional plasma-enhanced chemical-vapor-depositions techniques under energetic ion bombardment. © 1996 American Institute of Physics.

Notes: Optical absorption spectroscopy has been applied to measure the absolute population densities of the first excited levels of atomic hydrogen H*(n=2) and argon Ar*(4s) in an expanding cascaded arc plasma in hydrogen-argon mixture. It is demonstrated that the method allows us to determine both H*(n=2) and Ar*(4s) absolute density radial profiles for H2 admixtures in Ar ranging from 0.7% to 10% with good accuracy. The measured H*(n=2) densities are in the 1014–1016 m−3 range, and Ar*(4s) densities are in the range of 1015–1018 m−3. It has been shown, that the density of hydrogen excited atoms H*(n=2) serves as an indicator of the presence of argon ions and hydrogen molecules in the expanding plasma. A kinetic model is used to understand evolution of H*(n=2) density in the expansion, and to estimate the total atomic hydrogen population density and hydrogen dissociation degree in sub- and supersonic regions of the plasma.

Notes: Fabry–Pérot line profile measurements have been used to obtain heavy particle temperatures and electron densities for an expanding cascaded arc plasma in argon. This was done for the argon 415.9 and 696.5 nm neutral lines as a function of the distance from the onset of the expansion. Temperatures in the range of 2000–12 000 K were obtained. The electron density in the beginning of the expansion appeared to be 5.6×1021 m−3. The 696.5 nm line profiles appeared to be asymmetric because of self-absorption by cool metastables around the plasma. The density and temperature of these metastables could be determined by fitting the measurements to a theoretical model, and appeared to be around 1017 m−3 and around 3000 K, respectively.

Notes: Using an expanding cascaded arc plasma jet, amorphous hydrogenated and fluorohydrogenated carbon films were deposited on silicon, glass, and steel substrates at high rates of tens of nanometers per second and on large areas of up to 100 cm2. The present work was aimed at depositing amorphous carbon films suited for optical and protective applications. Films deposited with the common argon/methane or argon/acetylene mixture tend to delaminate from the substrate when the film is thicker than about 1 μm. For this reason, also trials using other compounds like C7H8 (toluene), CF4, and H2, and mixtures of these, were carried out. Using toluene, several-μm-thick films with good adhesion to the substrate were deposited. With spectroscopic ellipsometry and infrared absorption spectroscopy optical parameters were obtained. Appropriate numerical models were developed for analyzing the data, taking into account interference fringes in the spectra due to multiple reflections in the thin film. The hydrogen and oxygen content in the films were determined with nuclear recoil techniques. Films deposited with the use of methane and acetylene are diamondlike with mainly sp3 bonding types, and a hydrogen content ranging from 36 to 26 at. % (with a low oxygen contamination of 1–2 at. %). Films deposited with the use of toluene are more polymerlike, with also sp1 and sp2 bonding types. These films have a high hydrogen content (35 at. %), and can be partially oxidized (up to 13 at. %).In general, going from the polymerlike to the more diamondlike films, the refractive index increases from 1.3 to 2.2, and the band gap decreases from about 2 to 1 eV. By the admixture of hydrogen in the deposition plasma diamondlike films were produced with a larger band gap of 2.2 eV. The corrosion performance of the films was studied by storing them in a humidity cabinet. The corrosion resistance of films deposited with hydrocarbon/argon plasma mixtures appears to be limited. Thick films with a good corrosion resistance were produced by admixing a fluorine containing gas in the plasma. Analysis of the infrared absorption spectra showed that these films consist of amorphous fluorohydrogenated carbon. The presence of fluorine radicals in the plasma may lead to a chemically enhanced surface mobility, leading to a less porous film structure, and resulting in lower internal stresses. The growth rates and the corrosion performances of the films appear to be different for substrates of different types of steel. This may be attributed to different initial growth mechanisms, as a consequence of the difference in electrical and thermal conductivity of the two substrate types used here. © 1995 American Institute of Physics.

Notes: The surface reaction probability β in a remote Ar–H2–SiH4 plasma used for high growth rate deposition of hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) has been investigated by a technique proposed by D. A. Doughty et al. [J. Appl. Phys. 67, 6220 (1990)]. Reactive species from the plasma are trapped in a well, created by two substrates with a small slit in the upper substrate. The distribution of amount of film deposited on both substrates yields information on the compound value of the surface reaction probability, which depends on the species entering the well. The surface reaction probability decreases from a value within the range of 0.45–0.50 in a highly dissociated plasma to 0.33±0.05 in a plasma with ∼12% SiH4 depletion. This corresponds to a shift from a plasma with a significant production of silane radicals with a high (surface) reactivity (SiHx,x〈3) to a plasma where SiH3 is dominant. This has also been corroborated by Monte Carlo simulations. The decrease in surface reaction probability is in line with an improving a-Si:H film quality. Furthermore, the influence of the substrate temperature has been investigated. © 2000 American Institute of Physics.

Notes: This paper deals with the specifications and the possibilities of a novel highly sensitive optical absorption spectroscopy method. It consists of a cascaded arc as an extremely bright broadband light source with a high resolution spectrometer as a detector. Its interest for a continuous quantitative monitoring of the densities of waste atoms and molecules in the atmosphere is investigated. To this end, theoretical considerations are given with respect to the detection limits and the resolution necessary for selective spectrochemical analysis. In the first measurements with the setup, on a laboratory argon-hydrogen plasma, the versatility and sensitivity of the technique for measuring low species densities is demonstrated. Densities of the sublevels of the argon first excited state, the four Ar(3p54s) metastable and resonant substates, were measured simultaneously in one measuring sequence. The data were analyzed using an efficient line of sight integration technique. The densities of these substates are of the order of 1017 m−3 in a plasma with a pressure of 40 Pa. For the atomic hydrogen H(n=2) state, densities of the order of 1014 m−3 over a length of about 2 cm could be measured, representing a detection limit of approximately 2×1012 m−2. © 1995 American Institute of Physics.

Notes: A combined Thomson–Rayleigh scattering device is discussed. It consists of a Nd:YAG laser as a light source in combination with a multichannel detection technique consisting of a gated light amplifier in combination with an optical multichannel analyzer. Special attention is focused on the analysis of the measured spectra. Including convolution methods and taking into account weak coherent effects increases the dynamic range and the accuracy of the measured electron density ne and temperature Te and neutral particle density n0. Accuracies of 1%–4% for ne, 2%–6% for Te, and 10%–50% for n0 depending on the plasma condition are obtained. The dynamic range for ne is 7×1017–1021 m−3, for n0 is 1020–1023 m−3 and for Te is 1000–50 000 K.

Notes: A method to determine the electrical conductance of thin films such as a-Si:H that does not require contacting electrodes is presented. This method, introduced by Sommer and Tanner, is based on measuring the phase shift of a capacitive transmission line. The lower detection limit for the geometry used here is 10−11 Ω−1, which makes it suitable to determine the photoconductivity of a-Si:H thin films. The method shows reasonable agreement with classical conductance measurements using sputtered electrodes. © 1996 American Institute of Physics.

Notes: An in situ single wavelength HeNe rotating ellipsometry study of high rate (∼80 Å s−1) hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) deposition using an expanding thermal plasma is presented. An optical growth model is used to simulate the measured ellispometric trajectories similar to models used for low rate a-Si:H growth in the literature. The in situ growth at high growth rates was studied as function of the substrate temperature. The refractive index n (at 632.8 nm) increases with increasing temperature corresponding to an increase in the density of the films. The in situ extinction coefficient k (at 632.8 nm) increases with increasing substrate temperature due to a smaller optical band gap and due to an increase in indirect absorption. It is shown that the ellipsometry setup in combination with optical modeling enables us to monitor the surface roughness evolution during deposition and to obtain the dynamic scaling exponent β for postinitial growth. © 2000 American Institute of Physics.