Dense Plasma Focus—High-Energy-Density Pulsed Plasma Device Based Novel Facility for Controlled Material Processing and Synthesis

Abstract

Researchers and industries are always in continuous search of new facilities or methodologies that can be used for material synthesis or processing. There are a variety of plasmas that exist over a very wide range of plasma densities and temperatures that are currently being used for such purpose. Currently used plasma-based material synthesis tools mostly use continuous low-temperature (ranging from 0.1 to few eV) plasmas with plasma density ranging over a very wide range from 1013 to 1022 m−3. The dense plasma focus (DPF), with density and temperature of pinch plasma many orders of magnitudes higher than low-temperature plasmas, however, has been used on the very limited basis for material processing and synthesis as it faces criticism of the lack of controlled processing and deposition with desired features. The criticisms include (i) limited type of deposition, e.g., mostly nanoparticle morphology, (ii) limited metal anode based deposition only and (iii) shot to shot variation in operation leading to uncertainty in a deposition. This chapter highlights the controlled processing/synthesis of a variety of materials in plasma focus device by properly selecting (i) the operational parameters of the device, (ii) anode shape, design, and tip material, (iii) filling gas species and combinations, (iv) the deposition distance, and (v) the substrate material and substrate temperature. The understanding and control of plasma dynamics and plasma and charged particle beam (ions and electrons) parameters on the substrate surface (where processing/deposition occurs) by tuning the above-mentioned parameters can provide a very good control over the deposition type, morphology, and characteristics. The chapter provides the details of various features of DPF devices, deposition/processing configurations, with selected examples of controlled depositions/processing of wide variety of materials such as MX (where M = Metal, X = Nitrides/Oxides/Carbides), bi-metals and carbon-based materials in many different morphologies ranging from nanoparticles, nanoparticle agglomerates, to nanotubes.