Abstract
In this article, electrical characteristics of a high-power inductively-coupled plasma (ICP) torch operating at 3 MHz are determined by direct measurement of radio-frequency (RF) current and voltage together with energy balance in the system. The variation of impedance with two parameters, namely the input power and the sheath gas flow rate for a 50 kW ICP is studied. The ICP torch system is operated at near atmospheric pressure with argon as plasma gas. It is observed that the plasma resistance increases with an increase in the RF-power. Further, the torch inductance decreases with an increase in the RF-power. In addition, plasma resistance and torch inductance decrease with an increase in the sheath gas flow rate. The oscillator efficiency of the ICP system ranges from 40% to 80% with the variation of the Direct current (DC) powers. ICP has also been numerically simulated using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to predict the impedance profile. A good agreement was found between the CFD predictions and the impedance experimental data published in the literature.
Highlights
IntroductionInductively-coupled plasma (ICP) discharge has been widely used for materials processing applications such as etching, the synthesis of ultrafine powders of metals, and powder spherodization
Inductively-coupled plasma (ICP) discharge has been widely used for materials processing applications such as etching, the synthesis of ultrafine powders of metals, and powder spherodization.inductively-coupled plasma (ICP) is used in spectrochemical analysis, nano-particle synthesis, plasma processing and deposition of thin films [1,2,3,4]
The objective of the present study is to determine how the plasma resistance and the torch inductance vary with RF power and sheath gas flow rates
Summary
Inductively-coupled plasma (ICP) discharge has been widely used for materials processing applications such as etching, the synthesis of ultrafine powders of metals, and powder spherodization. ICP is used in spectrochemical analysis, nano-particle synthesis, plasma processing and deposition of thin films [1,2,3,4]. One of the most important issues in the investigation for ICP discharge is to find the process parameters that affect the characteristics of plasma [5,6,7]. To design a radio-frequency (RF) generator, knowledge of plasma impedance and its variation under different operating conditions is of great importance. Plasma impedance can be calculated by solving Maxwell equations with the generator voltage being used as the input source for the electromagnetic field [8].
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