Plasma anodization

Frauchiger VM, et al. Anodic plasma-chemical treatment of CP titanium surfaces for biomedical applications. Biomaterials 2004 25(4) 593—606. 

Scblegel P, et al. An in vivo evaluation of the biocompatibility of anodic plasma chentical (APC) treatment of titanium with calcium phosphate. J Biomed Mater Res B Appl Biomater 2009 90(1) 26—34. 

Anodization is the electrolytic oxidation of an anodic metal surface in an electrolyte. The oxide layer can be made thick if the electrolyte continually corrodes the oxide during formation. Barrier anodization uses borate and tartrate solutions and does not corrode the oxide layer. Barrier anodization can be used to form a very dense oxide layer on some metals ( valve metals) including aluminum, titanium, and tantalum. The thickness of the anodized layer is dependent on the electric field, giving a few angstroms/volt (about 30 A/volt for aluminum). The process is very sensitive to process parameters, in particular to tramp ions, which may cause corrosion in the bath. Anodized Ti, Ta, and Nb are used as jewelry where the oxide thickness provides colors from interference effects and the color depends on the anodization voltage. In anodic plasma oxidation, plasmas are used instead of fluid electrolytes to convert the surface to an oxide. 

Sihcon dioxide layers can be formed using any of several techniques, including thermal oxidation of siUcon, wet anodization, CVD, or plasma oxidation. Thermal oxidation is the dominant procedure used in IC fabrication. The oxidation process selected depends on the thickness and properties of the desired oxide layer. Thin oxides are formed in dry oxygen, whereas thick (>0.5 jim) oxide layers are formed in a water vapor atmosphere (13). 

The optoelectronic properties of the i -Si H films depend on many deposition parameters such as the pressure of the gas, flow rate, substrate temperature, power dissipation in the plasma, excitation frequency, anode—cathode distance, gas composition, and electrode configuration. Deposition conditions that are generally employed to produce device-quahty hydrogenated amorphous Si (i -SiH) are as follows gas composition = 100% SiH flow rate is high, --- dO cm pressure is low, 26—80 Pa (200—600 mtorr) deposition temperature = 250° C radio-frequency power is low, <25 mW/cm and the anode—cathode distance is 1-4 cm. 

Moves towards anode and all electrons get absorbed there. The leftout neutrons come back to plasma uncharged... 

Figure 1 Schematic of DC glow-discharge atomization and ionization processes. The sample is the cathode for a DC discharge in 1 Torr Ar. Ions accelerated across the cathode dark space onto the sample sputter surface atoms into the plasma (a). Atoms are ionized in collisions with metastable plasma atoms and with energetic plasma electrons. Atoms sputtered from the sample (cathode) diffuse through the plasma (b). Atoms ionized in the region of the cell exit aperture and passing through are taken into the mass spectrometer for analysis. The largest fraction condenses on the discharge cell (anode) wall.

Despite the progress outlined in this chapter, much work remains to be done in the metal surface preparation arena. For example, there is still no ideal surface preparation method that does for steel what anodization processes do for aluminum and titanium. The plasma spray process looks encouraging but because it is slow for large areas and requires rather expensive robot controlled plasma spray equipment, its use will probably be limited to some rather special applications. For more general use, the sol-gel process has potential if future studies confirm recently reported results. 

Vacuum arc can also be initiated by pulsed laser, as shown in Fig. 4 [15,16]. The target material is first vaporized into plasma by pulsed laser, and vacuum arc is subsequently initiated and more plasma is generated under the function of the electric field between the anode and the cathode (target). Since the arc is controllable, the surface quality might be evi-... 

A thermal plasma system has been developed for the decomposition of methane. A schematic diagram of the experimental apparatus is shown in Fig. 1. The system consists primarily of D.C. plasma torch, plasma reactor and filter assembly. Plasma was discharged between a tungsten cathode and a copper anode using N2 gas. All the experiments were carried out at atmospheric pressure at 6 kW input electric power and N2 flow rate of 10 to 12 1/min. The feed gas (CH4) flow rates were varied from 3 to 15 1/min depending on the operating conditions, shown in Table. 1. 

Microfabrication involves multiple photolithographic and etch steps, a silicon fusion bond and an anodic bond (see especially [12] for a detailed description, but also [11]). A time-multiplexed inductively coupled plasma etch process was used for making the micro channels. The microstructured plate is covered with a Pyrex wafer by anodic bonding. 

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