Independently Addressable Silicon Microcavity Plasma Arrays

Summary form only given. Addressable microcavity plasma devices with three electrode, dielectric barrier designs have been fabricated in 20 times 20 or 50 times 50 device arrays in Si and characterized in Ne, Ne/Xe, and Ar/D₂ gas mixtures. Each device comprises two metal electrode layers, a dielectric stack, and an inverted square pyramid microcavity having an emitting aperture of 50 times 50 mum² 100 times 100 mum². In this device structure, Si microcavity serves as the mold or backbone for subsequent processing. Arrays with filling factors of 11% and 25% (for (100 mum)² and (50 mum)² device arrays, respectively) and a crossed electrode geometry exhibit operating voltages in Ne of ~220-300 V (RMS) when driven by a 20 kHz sinusoidal driving voltage. Displacement currents are ~50% of those for previous Si microplasma device arrays and, when exciting the array with 100-140 V pulses, the risetime of the wavelength-integrated fluorescence is observed to be <600 ns for pure Ne or Ne/5%Xe gas mixtures at a pressure of 700 Torr. A full address and sustain pulse sequence has also been demonstrated with the three electrode device structure. The voltage margin and discharge delay were measured with several different device geometries and discharge properties of an addressed microcavity will be discussed.