Deposition of aluminium nanoparticles using dense plasma focus device

Abstract

Plasma route to nanofabrication has drawn much attention recently. The dense plasma focus (DPF) device is used for depositing aluminium nanoparticles on n-type Si (111) wafer. The plasma chamber is filled with argon gas and evacuated at a pressure of 80 Pa. The substrate is placed at distances 4.0 cm, 5.0 cm and 6.0 cm from the top of the central anode. The aluminium is deposited on Si wafer at room temperature with two focused DPF shots. The deposits on the substrate are examined for their morphological properties using atomic force microscopy (AFM). The AFM images have shown the formation of aluminium nanoparticles. From the AFM images, it is found that the size of aluminium nanoparticles increases with increase in distance between the top of anode and the substrate for same number of DPF shots.