The mechanism study of low-pressure air plasma cleaning on large-aperture optical surface unraveled by experiment and reactive molecular dynamics simulation

Low-pressure air plasma cleaning is an effective method for removing organic contaminants on large-aperture optical components in situ in the inertial confinement fusion facility. Chemical reactions play a significant role in plasma cleaning, which is a complex process involving abundant bond cleavage and species generation. In this work, experiments and reactive molecular dynamics simulations were carried out to unravel the reaction mechanism between the benchmark organic contaminants of dibutyl phthalate and air plasma. The optical emission spectroscopy was used to study the overall evolution behaviors of excited molecular species and radical signals from air plasma as a reference to simulations. Detailed reaction pathways were revealed and characterized, and specific intermediate radicals and products were analyzed during experiments and simulation. The reactive species in the air plasma, such as O, HO₂ and O₃ radicals, played a crucial role in cleaving organic molecular structures. Together, our findings provide an atomic-level understanding of complex reaction processes of low-pressure air plasma cleaning mechanisms and are essential for its application in industrial plasma cleaning.