Development of a Transformable Plasma Device for Materials Processing

In this paper, we have developed transformable-sheet electrodes for a capacitively coupled microwave plasma (CCMP) and diagnosed parameters of the CCMP in air, such as the rotational temperature of N₂ (400-600 K at 80-230 torr) and the electron density (approximately 10¹³/cm³ at 300 torr). We applied the CCMP to surface modification of polycarbonate to improve the hydrophilic property of the surface. We also performed generation of a homogeneous plasma, which could be of various shapes, developing different transformable-sheet electrodes in air by ac (1.6 kV) at 10 kHz at 3 torr. These results suggested that on-demand plasma processing without an operating gas could be achieved by utilizing transformable-sheet electrode technology.