Effect of methane content and the oscillating electric field between electrodes on atmospheric Ar/methane plasma jet and DLC coating deposition

In this work, the effects of the methane gas flow and the internal oscillating electric field between electrodes on radio-frequency (RF) atmospheric pressure argon/methane plasma jet and process of diamond-like carbon (DLC) film deposition have been investigated. Properties of RF atmospheric Ar/methane plasma jet such as active species density, length, electron temperature, appearance and ionization process of argon/methane plasma jet are changed due to the changing of methane flow content and electric field vector and its gradient. With increasing methane flow, the formation of C₂ hydrocarbon and CH band content is decreased because injected electrical energy to a mixture of Ar/methane gases is insufficient to stabilize the ionization process of methane gas and the electrical-chemical reaction rate is decreased. With shortening the gas gap between two electrodes, electric field strength and its gradient are increased leading to more energy injection to the electron. Electrical-chemical reactions are strengthened leading to increasing the CH band content. These phenomena introduce the Ar/methane plasma jet in different modes causing to deposit the DLC film with different structures and properties. With using quartz glass and alumina ceramic as dielectric barriers tubes, RF atmospheric pressure Ar/ methane plasma jet has been used to deposit DLC coating in different modes. Increasing methane content and shortening the gas gap leads to decreasing sp³ bonded content and the quality of the deposited film.