Electrical and optical characterization of an atmospheric pressure, uniform, large-area processing, dielectric barrier discharge

A printed-circuit-board (PCB) based atmospheric pressure dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) capable of uniform processing over a large area was constructed consisting of two parallel plates. The first perforated plate is comprised of four layers: a RF powered metal layer, a polymeric dielectric layer, a floating metal grid and another dielectric layer. The second, grounded, plate was fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO) glass plate with surface of 100 × 100 mm2 and thickness of 2 mm. The PCB based atmospheric pressure DBD was characterized by (a) measuring electrical characteristics of the device using derivative I–V probes, (b) ICCD imaging and (c) optical emission spectroscopy (OES). Optical and electrical characteristics, as well as plasma uniformity were measured by changing He flow rate and input power, while keeping the gap between the PCB and the FTO glass plate ground electrode constant at 2 mm. The plasma uniformity strongly depends on the applied power and on the flow rate of the buffer gas. When increasing the flow rate, the intensity of the nitrogen-dominated emission drops, while emission of helium and oxygen lines increases. The source allows low temperature, uniform plasma operation over a wide area of 100 × 100 mm2, which could be essential for numerous applications. Examples of etching rate and hydrophilization are demonstrated.