Effect of transport of growing nanoparticles on capacitively coupled rf discharge dynamics

Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2008 Aug;78(2 Pt 2):026410. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.78.026410. Epub 2008 Aug 19.

Abstract

We present experimental and numerical studies of the properties of a capacitively coupled 13.56MHz discharge in a mixture of Ar and C2H2 with growing nanosize particles. It is found that at the initial stage of the growth, nanoparticles are accumulated near the sheath-plasma boundaries, where the ionization by electrons is maximal. The nanoparticles suppress the ionization due to the absorbing fast electrons and stimulate a quick change of the plasma parameters followed by a transition between different modes of discharge operation. At that moment the peaked distribution of the dust particles transforms into a flat one.