A Development of Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Equipment and Its Applications for Treatment of Ag Films Formed from Nano-Particle Ink

Abstract

We have developed an equipment of atmospheric pressure plasma with two microwave guide antennas, which have a discharge line with 41 slots. The antennas are set against a stage with a heater in a process chamber. A process gas, which is a 1 % H2 gas diluted by Ar gas and its flow rate is 20 standard litter per minute (slm), flows into the micro-wave guide and goes to a process chamber through each slots. A micro-wave is introduced to the micro-wave guide and the atmospheric pressure plasma grows at each slots. We obtained the electron density of 1×1015 cm−3 and the H radical density of 1×10−16 cm−3 at the slot on the condition of a 10 GHz, 1.5 kWatt, pulsed micro-wave with 2.5 pulsed voltage, 4 kHz pulsed frequency, and a duty ratio of 0.16. We applied this system to improve the quality of the spin-coated Ag firm formed from Ag nano-particle ink. This Ag film showed a resistivity of 32 μΩ cm after annealing on the condition of 180 °C for 30 minutes recommended by the maker (The bulk resistivity of Ag is 1.6 μΩ cm). In order to make the annealing time shorter, we studied the effect of atmospheric plasma treatment of Ag film. We obtained the Ag film of the 5.7 μΩ cm resistivity after the atmospheric pressure plasma treatment under 180 °C for 5 min.