Alena Hinze

Design and optimization of dielectric barrier discharge microplasma stamps

Microplasma stamps based upon the principle of dielectric barrier discharges are applied to a new type of area-selective surface modification process at atmospheric pressure. This process integrates the surface treatment and lateral microstructuring within one process step. For this purpose the plasma is ignited in cavities which are formed temporarily by compressing the microplasma stamp and the substrate to be treated. In this work we compare different microplasma stamp designs with the objective of minimizing the ignition voltage to the smallest possible value. Several experiments with regard to the ignition voltage have been conducted, operating in air at atmospheric pressure with medium frequency excitation (33 kHz). They contrast the influence of different types of electrical contacts as well as different electrode types and cavity sizes (diameter 100–500 µm) on the ignition voltage. Furthermore the influence of different substrates to be treated and the compression force have been analysed.