Discharge instability at patterned conductive layers on insulating substrates during pulsed-plasma chemical vapor deposition under near atmospheric pressures

Discharge instability at patterned conductive layers on insulating substrates during pulsed-plasma chemical vapor deposition under near atmospheric pressures was studied by observing the distribution of plasma damage spots in the grown film. Instability of the discharge is found to be enhanced at conductive layers, and the density and the size of the plasma damage spots vary with the shape and the size of the conductive pattern. Based on these observations, we propose a simple model, uniformly diluted charge (UDC) model, to explain the damage distribution within the conductive pattern.