Fabrication and Performance Optimization of the Microplasma Reactor with Composite Dielectrics

A microplasma reactor with composite dielectric layers for maskless micro/nano plasma etching is presented. The composite dielectric layers include the Si3N4, SiO2 and polyimide film. In order to obtain optimum dielectric properties of dielectric films, the process parameters for depositing the Si3N4 and SiO2 film were obtained through a large number of experimental data. Then the microplasma reactor having inverted pyramidal hollow cathode and metal-composite dielectric layers-metal sandwich structure, is successfully fabricated. The experiment results show that the lifetimes, stability and microdischarge characteristics of the devices are superior to those of earlier fabricated with a single polymer dielectric layer. These microplasma devices are expected to operate in the further maskless scanning plasma etching.