APPLICATION OF RADIO-FREQUENCY (RF) THERMAL PLASMA TO FILM FORMATION

Several applications of radio-frequency (RF) thermal plasma to film formation are reviewed. Three types of injection plasma processing (IPP) technique are first introduced for the deposition of materials. Those are thermal plasma chemical vapor deposition (CVD), plasma flash evaporation, and plasma spraying. Radio-frequency (RF) plasma and hybrid (combination of RF and direct current(DC)) plasma are next introduced as promising thermal plasma sources in the IPP technique. Experimental data for three kinds of processing are demonstrated mainly based on our recent researches of depositions of functional materials, such as high temperature semiconductor SiC and diamond, ionic conductor $ZrO_2-Y_2O_3$ and high critical temperature superconductor $YBa_2Cu_3O_7-x$. Special emphasis is given to thermal plasma flash evaporation, in which nanometer-scaled clusters generated in plasma flame play important roles as nanometer-scaled clusters as deposition species. A novel epitaxial growth mechanism from the "hot" clusters namely "hot cluster epitaxy (HCE)" is proposed.)" is proposed.osed.