Dielectric barrier discharge species gain for microelectronic substrate treatment

Summary form only given. A novel multi-electrode dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma system exhibiting active species gain is examined for the production of ozone gas and hence microelectronic substrate treatment. This species gain is achieved by having four electrode pairs in a vertical arrangement and supplying compressed air to traverse throughout the system. This forces the filamentary striations together through lateral pressure, thus aiding in the formation of an extremely dense plasma. The multi-electrode system operates in an effective feed-forward mechanism to create a denser plasma than reported previously. By increasing the initial conditions for oxygen metastables and radicals, singlet oxygen atoms and other reactive species, the overall density is also increased for successive electrode pairs. Additionally, existing plasma technologies for ozone production require the sample to be treated within the plasma volume. Due to the forced nature of the plasma flow, indirect treatment is possible and all results reported here are based on this. Tests on mica and silicon for the semiconductor industries were performed and compared with existing ozone treatment technologies. Results indicate that sufficient surface chemical changes were in evidence with only 30 seconds of plasma treatment. These were obtained by microscopic analysis using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Raman spectroscopy in addition to contact angle/wickability tests. These results compare excellently with standard 45-minute treatments of existing technology indicating that this novel plasma system could be used to produce similar quantities of ozone in roughly 1.1% of the time to standard ozone treatment apparatus. In particular this research has enormous potential in industry due to the high concentration of ozone produced coupled with the prospective in-line set-up of the system. Microelectronic sensors were fabricated from these substrates and functioned in a similar manner to existing sensors, i.e. with almost 45 minutes cut from the manufacture time.