Deposition Process Using a Shunting Arc Discharge

Shunting arc discharge is a pulsed plasma source of metals and semimetal materials, and is ignited without any trigger sources at a wide range of the gas pressures, from vacuum to atmospheric pressure under identical discharge conditions. In this article, an application of the shunting arc plasma for a preparation of thin film and its process are described. The process using the shunting arc plasma can be divided into two phases; an ignition and an ion extraction phases. The shunting arc plasma is generated by a joule heating with a pulsed large current when the heating energy exceeds a critical value. The generated plasma expanded from the center of source rod with velocity of around 1 km/s. The ions contained in the arc plasma can be extracted by applying a negative pulse to a substrate holder. When the shunting arc is produced in vacuum, only the solid materials are deposited on the substrate. However, in a low-presser gas medium, electrons produced in the shunting arc are accelerated toward the wall, colliding with the gas molecules in the chamber to ionize them. Deposition rate using the shunting arc plasma can be improved with the use of the Lorentz force, which accelerates the entire plasma toward the substrate.