SURFACE POTENTIAL CONTROL IN PLASMA PROCESSING OF MATERIALS

摘要

SURFACE POTENTIAL CONTROL IN PLASMA PROCESSING OF MATERIALS An object (30) is plasma processed by placing an electrically conducting grid (34) over all or a portion of the surface (32) of the object (30) so that the grid (34) generally follows the contours of the surface (32) but is displaced outwardly from the surface (32). Ions or electrons from a plasma surrounding the object (30) are accelerated into the surface (32) of the object (30) using as a processing driving force an electrical potential applied to the electrically conducting grid (34). The use of a contoured conducting grid (34) allows plasma processing of large, electrically nonconducting objects and objects having sharp surface features or recesses.