Plasma Research Laboratories (PRL) Facilities

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Machines useful for processing

a. Southern Cross - PECVD and sputter deposition
This machine can be used for sputter deposition or PECVD and is basically used for research involving fuel cells. Fuel cells use a Pt electrode to break hydrogen into an electron and proton. The protons pass through a network of proton conducting polymers, where as electrons flow through external circuit to generate current. At the opposite electrode, the electrons, protons and atmospheric oxygen react to form water.
The machine is a helicon reactor. In the sputter deposition mode, Ar ion plasma is used for sputtering of metals like Pt or Ni. And in the PECVD mode, plasma can be created from other gaseous sources, eg., for growing C nanotubes, plasma is created from methane/hydrogen gases, which reacts with a catalyst on the substrate (could be Ni) to form the nanotubes.

b. PECVD – Platipus
This reactor uses H2 as the carrier gas. The carrier gas is passed through C8H8 (Polymer that is used to form the proton conducting base for fuel cell applications) and CF3SO3H (SO3- groups are the actual proton conducting groups). Once the carrier gas enters the reactor, Ar plasma is created that breaks down the reactants and deposited the proton conducting polymers on Si—used in fuel cells.

c. Etch machine
This machine is again a helicon reactor and can be used for etching substrates or for deposition of polymers by choosing the right plasmas. The machine has provision for N2, CF4, O2, Ar, SF6, C2F6 and CHF3. This machine can create plasma with density upto 1012/cm3, confine them using magnetic fields of strengths upto 200G (magnetic field confinement of plasma gives uniform etches) and can provide DC/RF biasing for the substrate to be etched.

d. HARE-Helicon activated reactive evaporation
This machine can be used for deposition of oxides, nitrides, carbides and pure materials. Eg; if we want to deposit TiO2, Ti is evaporated and the vapours are passed through oxygen plasma, where they react with each other and get deposited as TiO2 on the substrate.

Space thrusters:
a. WOMBAT-Waves on magnetized beams and turbulence
b. Chikung reactor
c. Bilby-minithruster
d. Space simulation chamber-IRIKUNDJI – Employs diverging magnetic fields to create expanding plasmas.