A freely localized discharge excited by intense microwave beams in high-pressure gases. Physics and applications

Summary form only given. In the paper the recent successes of IAP microwave discharge group in studies of a discharge excited by intense converging microwave beams in high-pressure gases are presented. This discharge as a source of nonequilibrium freely localized plasma is very promising for a lot of applications in industry such as surface treatment, thin film deposition and super-pure plasma chemistry. The discharge gives a high density of active neutral species needed for these applications. But its successful application depends on the understanding of the physical processes which define dynamics, complicated discharge structure and plasma parameters. In the experiments the microwaves of wavelength 8-mm, pulse power 400 kW, pulse duration 50-500 microsecond, pulses repetition frequency 0.1-10 Hz are used. The main discharge properties in different gases at pressure 100-760 Torr are investigated.