Though low pressure plasmas have found wide applications in materials processing and play a key role in manufacturing semiconductor devices, operating the plasma at reduced pressure has several drawbacks. Vacuum systems are expensive and require maintenance. Load locks and robotic assemblies must be used to shuttle materials in and out of vacuum and essentially it is a batch process. Also the size of the object that can be treated is limited by the size of the vacuum chamber. Atmospheric-pressure plasmas overcome the disadvantages of vacuum operation. The focus of this STTR proposal is to design and develop an innovative silicon carbide/metal chemical vapor deposition process at atmospheric pressure using a dielectric barrier discharge that overcomes the above mentioned limitations while meeting the upcoming cost and throughput requirements of the electronic industry. The research is directed at both expanding the fundamental science needed to better understand the dielectric barrier discharge process for silicon nitride deposition, as well as developing a low temperature coating process. In Phase II a prototype reactor will be designed and constructed and the feasibility study will be extended to develop a cost-effective, high throughput and reliable process to provide silicon carbide/EMI-RFI coating. Phase III will address the commercial process based on these results towards a streamlined and robust atmospheric pressure plasma chemical vapor deposition system for thermal barrier/interface/EMI-RFI coating and surface modification at nominal material and production cost
