• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.63 no.10
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• pp.1485-1490
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• 2014

$SF_6$ gas has been used for power transformers or gas insulated switchgears, because it has the superior insulation property and the stable structure chemically. It has been, however, one of global warming gases and required to reduce the its amount. Some papers have reported that its amount could be reduced by mixing with other gases, such as $N_2$, $CF_4$, $CO_2$ and $C_4F_8$ and their mixture gases would cause the synergy effect. In this paper, we investigated the characteristics of DC plasmas on $SF_6$ mixture gases with $N_2$ at atmospheric pressure. $N_2$ gas is one of cheap gases and has been reported to show the synergy effect with mixing $SF_6$ gas, even though $N_2$ plasmas have electron-positive characteristics. 38 kinds of $SF_6/N_2$ plasma particles, which consisted of an electron, two positive ions, five negative ions, 30 excitation and vibration particles, were considered in a one dimensional fluid simulation model with capacitively coupled plasma chamber. The results showed that the joule heating of $SF_6/N_2$ plasmas was mainly caused by positive ions, on the other hand electrons acted on holding the $SF_6/N_2$ plasmas stably. The joule heating was strongly generated near the electrodes, which caused the increase of neutral gas temperature within the chamber. The more $N_2$ mixed-ratio increased, the less joule heating was. And the power consumptions by electron and positive ions increased with the increase of $N_2$ mixed-ratio.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers P
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• v.58 no.4
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• pp.516-520
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• 2009

Atmosphere Plasmas of Gas Discharge (APGD) have been used in plasma sources for material processing such as etching, deposition, surface modification, etc. This study is to investigate and understand the fundamental plasma discharge properties. Especially, $SF_6/N_2$ mixed gas would be used in power transformer, GIS (Gas insulated switchgear) and so on. In this paper, we developed a one dimensional fluid simulation model with capacitively coupled plasma chamber at the atmosphere pressure (760 [Torr]). 38 kinds of $SF_6/N_2$ plasma particles which are an electron, two positive ions (${SF_5}^+$, ${N_2}^+$), five negative ions (${SF_6}^-$, ${SF_5}^-$, ${SF_4}^-$, ${F_2}^-$, ${F_1}^-$), thirty excitation and vibrational particles for $N_2$ were considered in this computation. The $N_2$ gases of 20%, 50%, 80% were mixed in $SF_6$ gas. As the amount of $N_2$ gas was increased, the properties of electro-negative plasma moved toward the electro-positive plasma.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.16-22
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• 2008

We studied plasma etching of polycarbonate in $O_2/SF_6$, $O_2/N_2$ and $O_2/CH_4$. A capacitively coupled plasma system was employed for the research. For patterning, we used a photolithography method with UV exposure after coating a photoresist on the polycarbonate. Main variables in the experiment were the mixing ratio of $O_2$ and other gases, and RF chuck power. Especially, we used only a mechanical pump for in order to operate the system. The chamber pressure was fixed at 100 mTorr. All of surface profilometry, atomic force microscopy and scanning electron microscopy were used for characterization of the etched polycarbonate samples. According to the results, $O_2/SF_6$ plasmas gave the higher etch rate of the polycarbonate than pure $O_2$ and $SF_6$ plasmas. For example, with maintaining 100W RF chuck power and 100 mTorr chamber pressure, 20 sccm $O_2$ plasma provided about $0.4{\mu}m$/min of polycarbonate etch rate and 20 sccm $SF_6$ produced only $0.2{\mu}m$/min. However, the mixed plasma of 60 % $O_2$ and 40 % $SF_6$ gas flow rate generated about $0.56{\mu}m$ with even low -DC bias induced compared to that of $O_2$. More addition of $SF_6$ to the mixture reduced etch of polycarbonate. The surface roughness of etched polycarbonate was roughed about 3 times worse measured by atomic force microscopy. However examination with scanning electron microscopy indicated that the surface was comparable to that of photoresist. Increase of RF chuck power raised -DC bias on the chuck and etch rate of polycarbonate almost linearly. The etch selectivity of polycarbonate to photoresist was about 1:1. The meaning of these results was that the simple capacitively coupled plasma system can be used to make a microstructure on polymer with $O_2/SF_6$ plasmas. This result can be applied to plasma processing of other polymers.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.113-118
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• 2002

We developed engineering methods to control gas flow in a plasma reactor in order to achieve good etch depth uniformity for large area GaAs etching. Finite difference numerical method was found quite useful for simulation of gas flow distribution in the reactor for dry etching of GaAs. The experimental results in $BCl_3/N_2/SF_6/He$ ICP plasmas confirmed that the simulated data fitted very well with real data. It is noticed that a focus ring could help improve both gas flow and etch uniformity for 150 mm diameter GaAs plasma etch processing. The simulation results showed that optimization of clamp configuration could decrease gas flow uniformity as low as $\pm$ 1.5% on an 100 mm(4 inch) GaAs wafer and $\pm$ 3% for a 150 m(6 inch) wafer with the fixed reactor and electrode, respectively. Comparison between simulated gas flow uniformity and real etch depth distribution data concluded that control of gas flow distribution in the chamber would be significantly important in order or achieve excellent dry etch uniformity of large area GaAs wafers.