Aerosol assisted atmospheric pressure plasma jet for a high deposition rate of silica-like thin films

Abstract

This paper investigated thin films deposition processes of silica-like based on the injection of liquid droplets in Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Jet–APPJ operated in open air. An aerosol of hexamethyldisilane is produced by a syringe-pump and injected in a nitrogen post-discharge for different liquid precursor and carrier gas flow rates. For high carrier gas flow, this process enables to form silica-like without addition of oxygen in the plasma phase. Furthermore, this process offers a thin film dynamic deposition rate from 500 to 1400 nm.m.min−1 depending on the carrier gas flow and the film structure departs from silica-like to organosilicon layers for the lowest flow rates. These evolutions are attributed to plasma–droplets interactions related to the transport of droplets, the evaporation of liquid and plasma polymerization.