Chapter 14 – The DC Glow Discharge or Plasma

The glow discharge or plasma is both used for deposition as well as a method of providing additional energy during the deposition process. This chapter describes the basic DC glow discharge and how using magnetic enhancement the plasma can be increased in density enabling either faster surface treatment for high-speed winding systems or in a different form a magnetron sputtering source. Where the deposition source is by evaporation it is possible to add an additional plasma and some of the different options such as triode or hollow cathode ion source as described.