Plasma Bubble in an RF Reactor

A pronounced local enhancement of the argon plasma of the capacitively coupled reactor PULVA-INP is generated by applying an additional RF voltage at the central pixel (CP) of its adaptive electrode. This enhancement is observed by a large increase of the light-emission intensity. A 2-D fluid model is applied to describe the plasma in this reactor configuration. A pronounced change of the electric potential and a large increase of the electron density are obtained around the CP. The spatial structure of the increased excitation rate of argon corresponds to the observed light emission.