Study of Possible Obstacles Preventing Obtaining a Tokomak Regime in the Egyptian Machine

The main goal of this study is to clarify the possibility to obtain the plasma discharge and to prolong its duration as much as possible, and to analyze what are the preventing reasons of obtaining this goal. Possible reasons can be improper operation of the power supply system, a high level of stray magnetic fields, lack of equilibrium, influence of MHD instabilities, and a high level of impurities. We analyze experimentally these possibilities and discuss them in more details.

Propagation of TE-Surface Waves on Semi-Bounded Quantum Plasma

The propagation of the TE-surface waves on a semibounded quantum plasma is investigated by using the system of generalized quantum hydrodynamic (QHD) model and Maxwell's equations. The dispersion relations for these surface waves on quantum electron plasma in the presence of external magnetic field which is parallel to the wave propagation are derived. The perturbation of electron density and the electric fields of the TE-surface waves are also obtained. However, it was found that quantum effects (Bohm potential and statistical) have no remarkable action on the electric and magnetic field components in the case of unmagnetized plasma. But, it was found that the dispersion relation of surface modes depends significantly on these effects in the case of electrostatic or unmagnetized plasma.

Plasma-Induced Damage on the Reliability of Hf-Based High-k/Dual Metal-Gates Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor Technology

This study examines the effects of plasma-induced damage (PID) on Hf-based high-k/dual metal-gates transistors processed with advanced complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology. In addition to the gate dielectric degradations, this study demonstrates that thinning the gate dielectric reduces the impact of damage on transistor reliability including the positive bias temperature instability (PBTI) of n-channel metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (NMOSFETs) and the negative bias temperature instability (NBTI) of p-channel MOSFETs. This study shows that high-k/metal-gate transistors are more robust against PID than conventional SiO2/poly-gate transistors with similar physical thickness. Finally this study proposes a model that successfully explains the observed experimental trends in the presence of PID for high-k/metal-gate CMOS technology.

Microstructures Formation by Fluorocarbon Barrel Plasma Etching

The aim of our study is to generate microstructures in order to improve optical properties of monocrystalline silicon. By mean of fluorocarbon plasma barrel texturing and under certain process conditions, silicon turned black. As a result of silicon surface-plasma particles reactions, porous microstructures are formed, while a longer process time microspikes are developed. These microstructures are responsible of the high level of light trapping on almost the whole range of the usable portion of the solar spectrum. In the wavelength range of 400–1100 nm, the AM1.5G weighted reflection has been reduced to 6.20%. In addition to good trapping, this surface morphology leads to superior absorption, which is about 95% in the 600–1000 nm range and decreases to 36% at 1200 nm. This material is thus less transparent and absorbs near infrared light far more than the untreated silicon. Secondary ion mass spectrometry shows that elements from the ambient gas are deposited or superficially introduced into the silicon. In addition to surface texturing, these impurities are probably the reason of absorptance enhancement. Moreover, a pore formation mechanism is proposed.

Etch Defect Characterization and Reduction in Hard-Mask-Based Al Interconnect Etching

This paper identifies the defect adders, for example, post hard-mask etch residue, post metal etch residue, and blocked etch metal island and investigates the removal characteristics of these defects within the oxide-masked Al etching process sequence. Post hard-mask etch residue containing C atom is related to the hardening of photoresist after the conventional post-RIE ashing at 275∘C. An in situ O2-based plasma ashing on RIE etcher was developed to prevent the photoresist hardening from the high-ashing temperature; followed wet stripping could successfully eliminate such hardened polymeric residue. Post metal etch residue was caused from the attack of the Al sidewall by Cl atoms, and too much CHF3 addition in the Al main etch step passivated the surface of Al resulting in poor capability to remove the Al-containing residue. The lower addition of CHF3 in the Al main etch step would benefit from the residue removal. One possibility of blocked etch metal island creating was due to the micromasking formed on the opening of TiN during the hard-mask patterning. We report that an additional TiN surface pretreatment with the Ar/CHF3/N2 plasmas could reduce the impact of the micromasking residues on blocked metal etch.

Observation and Modeling of Optical Emission Patterns and Their Transitions in a Penning Discharge

A Penning discharge tube has been used as the excitation source for optical detection of gaseous species concentrations in a neutral gas. This type of diagnostic has been primarily used in magnetic fusion energy experiments for the detection of minority species in the effluent gas (e.g., for helium detection in a deuterium background). Recent innovations (US Patent no. 6351131, granted February 26, 2002) have allowed for extension of the operation range from <1 Pa to as high as 100 Pa and possibly beyond. This is done by dynamically varying the gauge magnetic field and voltage to keep the optical signals nearly constant (or at least away from a nonlinear dependence on the pressure). However, there are limitations to this approach, because the Penning discharge can manifest itself in a number of modes, each exhibiting a different spatial emission pattern. As a result, varying the discharge parameters can cause the gauge to undergo transitions between these modes, disrupting any intended monotonic dependence of the overall emission on the varied parameter and hence any predicable impact on the emission. This paper discusses some of the modes observed experimentally using video imaging of the discharge. It also presents a first successful application, a particle-in-cell (PIC) code, to simulate these modes and a mode transition. The hope is that a good understanding of the physics involved in the mode transitions may allow for methods of either avoiding or suppressing such transitions. This would aid in broadening the use of this plasma-based sensor technology.

Hollow Cathode and Low-Thrust Extraction Grid Analysis for a Miniature Ion Thruster

Miniature ion thrusters are well suited for future space missions that require high efficiency, precision thrust, and low contamination in the mN to sub-mN range. JPL's miniature xenon Ion (MiXI) thruster has demonstrated an efficient discharge and ion extraction grid assembly using filament cathodes and the internal conduction (IC) cathode. JPL is currently preparing to incorporate a miniature hollow cathode for the MiXI discharge. Computational analyses anticipate that an axially upstream hollow cathode location provides the most favorable performance and beam profile; however, the hot surfaces of the hollow cathode must be sufficiently downstream to avoid demagnetization of the cathode magnet at the back of the chamber, which can significantly reduce discharge performance. MiXI's ion extraction grids are designed to provide >3 mN of thrust; however, previous to this effort, the low-thrust characteristics had not been investigated. Experimental results obtained with the MiXI-II thruster (a near replica or the original MiXI thruster) show that sparse average discharge plasma densities of ∼5×1015–5×1016 m-3 allow the use of very low beamlet focusing extraction voltages of only ∼250–500 V, thus providing thrust levels as low as 0.03 mN for focused beamlet conditions. Consequently, the thrust range thus far demonstrated by MiXI in this and other tests is 0.03–1.54 mN.

FFT Analysis of a Series Loaded Resonant Converter-Based Power Supply for Pulsed Power Applications

An impulse power supply has been designed, simulated, and tested in order to feed the primary of a high-frequency transformer. Pulse power system has been widely used for plasma applications. The operational principle of the pulse power system is that the energy from the input source is stored in the capacitor bank device through a dc-dc converter. Then, when a discharging signal is given, the stored energy is released to the load. The new family of ZCS converters is suitable for high-power applications using insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs). The power converter can achieve zero switching with the aid of high-frequency transformer. The device is capable of charging a 0.1 μF capacitor up to 5 kV which accounts for a charging power of 5 kJ/s. The novel control algorithm is achieved which eminently considers the nonlinear control characteristics of impulse power supply. The required charging voltage, together with the constraint on the charging time, translates into a required maximum power of 10 kW reduced in this initial version to 5 kW. The difficulty to reliably control such a power at the high-voltage side practically forbids any approach featuring a more or less stabilized DC high-voltage to be generated from a conventional 50 Hz transformer through rectification.

Mass-Charge and Energy Spectra of Oxygen Ions in a Two-Element Laser-Produced Plasma

Using a static mass spectrometer, we study the characteristics of multicharge plasma ions generated from solid targets under the action of a 15 nanosecond Nd:YAG laser radiation with maximal intensity 1011 W/cm2. We consider two-element solid targets with a mass of the heavy component ranging from 44.9 (Sc) to 174.9 (Lu) with main attention to the properties of oxygen ions. The time-of-flight measurements show that oxygen ions are obtained in the range of the energy E = 40–250 eV with maximal charge Zmax=2. The latter is independent on the target composition for the given intensity of the laser radiation. However, the properties of the energy spectra of oxygen ions strongly depend on the second component of the target, which is explained by the interaction between the light and heavy elements of the target.