Plasma etching of single fine particle trapped in Ar plasma by optical tweezers

Abstract

Physical and chemical interactions between plasmas and nano-featured surfaces are one important issue in the plasma processing. Here we optically trap single fine particle levitated at plasma/sheath boundary with an infrared laser to realize in-situ analysis of such interactions. We have measured time evolution of the diameter of the single fine particle in Ar plasma. The trapped particle was etched at an etching rate of 1 nm/min in Ar plasma. We also obtained a Raman peak at around 2950 cm-1 corresponding to C-H bonds in the single fine particle in Ar plasma. The results open a new possibility to observe directly interactions between plasma and single fine particle. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.