Pulsed rf-Discharge in Zyflex-Chamber

Abstract

Interrupting rf-discharge is a well known method to control processes in plasmas. For example, in semiconductor processing it can be used to control growth of particles from material out of the plasma phase. By switching off the discharge, ”fog” of grown particles can be driven out of the plasma by gravity. On the other hand, pulsing the plasma gives a good possibility to tune effective electron temperature independently from plasma density. So you could tune interactions in complex plasma systems in a more flexible way. Ekoplasma will provide Plasmalab, the future lab for complex plasma research on the international space station ISS. Together with its large cylindrical chamber Zyflex it will have many features to cover a wide range of physics in complex plasma research. It also includes a multifunctional rf-generator which can be pulsed at different frequencies with on/off times even less than 50 mus. Combining the feature of switching the discharge on and off with micro gravity conditions it will be possible to tune plasma parameters without losing particles due to gravitational forces. In this contribution, we will show frst results of particles levitated in a pulsed gas discharge in the current lab setup of Ekoplasma.