One-Step Etching Characteristics of ITO/Ag/ITO Multilayered Electrode in High-Density and High-Electron-Temperature Plasma

This paper presents the dry etching characteristics of indium tin oxide (ITO)/Ag/ITO multilayered thin film, used as a pixel electrode in a high-resolution active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) device. Dry etching was performed using a combination of H2 and HCl gases in a reactive ion etching system with a remote electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) plasma source, in order to achieve high electron temperature. The effect of the gas ratio (H2/HCl) was closely observed, in order to achieve an optimal etch profile and an effective etch process, while other parameters—such as the radio frequency (RF) power, ECR power, chamber pressure, and temperature—were fixed. The optimized process, with an appropriate gas ratio, constitutes a one-step serial dry etch solution for ITO and Ag multilayered thin films.

Climatology of very high ionospheric electron temperature occurrences as observed by Swarm constellation

<p>After more than seven years in orbit, the ESA Swarm satellites have provided an already large statistics of measurements of several important physical parameters of the ionosphere. In particular, electron density and temperature are measured by pairs of Langmuir Probes, and the quality of such data is now considered good enough for many studies, either science cases or climatological characterisations. Concerning specifically the electron temperature, a rather elusive parameter which is quite difficult to correctly characterize “in situ”, and for which the past literature is not so abundant with respect to other ionospheric physical quantities, the overall distributions observed by Swarm are qualitatively consistent with expectations from theory and past observations. However, a non-negligible amount of high and very high electron temperature values is regularly observed, whose distributions and properties are not trivial. In this study we aim at characterizing such features statistically as a function of latitude, local time, and season.</p>

Predictive simulations of operation scenarios for EAST with METIS code

Upgraded heating and current drive (H/CD) systems have been equipped on the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST). With the upgraded H/CD systems, the operation space of EAST is extended, and the ability to achieve higher performance is improved. In this paper, a 0.5 dimension transport code named Minute Embedded Tokamak Integrated Simulator (METIS) is applied to predict the EAST operation space and to assess the current drive capability of the 4.6 GHz lower hybrid current drive system. Predictive simulation of several EAST scenarios, including steady-state high confinement mode (H-mode), advanced regime, high normalized beta and high electron temperature, are also performed with the available H/CD systems. The simulation results provide a guidance for forthcoming advanced EAST experiments.

Advances in Abatement of Perfluorocarbons (PFCs) with Microwave Plasma

Perfluorocarbons have been widely used in the semiconductor industry. As highly potent global warming gases, they have extremely long atmospheric lifetime and intensive absorption ability of infrared radiation. Naturally, the abatement of PFCs becomes a critical environmental issue. In this paper, an effort is made to review the development of microwave plasma technology for the control of PFCs. Relevant studies indicate that microwave plasma has the advantage of high electron temperature and high electron density which is of great potential to PFCs abatement. Low pressure microwave plasma may interfere with the normal operation of semiconductor manufacturing processes. At atmospheric pressure, microwave plasmas exhibit high react performance with PFCs. The atmospheric pressure microwave plasma combined with catalyst can reduce the microwave power and increase the destruction and removal efficiency and energy efficiency. The combination technology has a good potential to be used as an integrated technology for abating PFCs from complicated gas streams of semiconductor manufacturing processes.

Proton/electron temperature ratio in the magnetotail

We study the temperature ratio of protons and electrons based on statistics of Cluster observations in the Earth's magnetotail from 2001 to 2004. During these years, from June to November, the Cluster spacecraft visited the plasma sheet at the distance r~−19 RE. We use proton and electron moments collected in the central region of the plasma sheet (|Z|<5 RE). We find an average ratio of proton and electron temperatures ⟨Tp/Te ⟩ &amp;approx; 3.5. The dependence of Tp on Te can be approximated by the power-law function: Tp &amp;approx; 11Te0.62, where Tp and Te are measured in MK. A previous reported ratio ⟨Tp/Te ⟩ ~ 7 is limited to small electron temperatures <20 MK. The observations with the high electron temperature correspond to smaller values of the electron density and larger values of the proton and electron bulk velocities. A correlation between Te and curlometer current density is not found.