Eur. Phys. J. D (2014) 68: 56
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2014-40430-3

Regular Article

Time and spatial resolved optical and electrical characteristics of continuous and time modulated RF plasmas in contact with conductive and dielectric substrates

Department of Applied Physics, Elementary Processes in Gas Discharges, Eindhoven University of Technology, P.O. Box 513, 5600 MB, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

^a Current address: Leibniz Institute for Plasma Science and Technology INP Greifswald e.V., Felix-Hausdorff-Str. 2, 17489 Greifswald, Germany
^b e-mail: pbruggem@umn.edu

Received: 19 July 2013
Received in final form: 15 November 2013
Published online: 21 March 2014

Abstract

Cold atmospheric pressure plasma jets are often used as a remote plasma source for substrate treatments. However, this substrate acts as an electrode and this additional electrode can induce effects on plasma parameters such as the dissipated power, gas temperature, etc. In this work the influence of substrates of different conductivity and permittivity in direct contact with three different operational modes of atmospheric pressure RF plasma jets is investigated. Two different electrode configurations (creating either a linear or a cross electric field) and, for the linear field configuration, two voltage modulations (continuous RF and kHz pulsed RF) have been studied. Electrical and optical diagnostic methods have been performed in order to get quantitative data of the change in plasma dissipated power and gas temperature, when the plasma is in direct contact with the substrate. In all three investigated cases the power dissipation and gas temperature, significantly increase when the plasma is in direct contact with a conductive substrate. The increase of power is attributed to a change of the equivalent electrical circuit, leading to a more favourable matching between the power input and the plasma source.