Tthe study of black matrix ashing of FPD industry by atmospheric pressure plasma technology

Summary form only given. The black matrix (BM) rework using traditional wet process in the LCD industries is time consuming, costly and pollution. However, the plasma process provides a fast, less expensive and clean alternative. Especially, it is noticed that atmospheric pressure plasma attracts many attentions due to their lower equipment cost, operating without chambers and most suitable for large area substrate processing. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the BM ashing characteristics by a homemade atmospheric-pressure plasma jet (APPJ). The nitrogen, oxygen and compressed dried air (CDA) were excited by a tunable-frequency AC power. To study the APPJ performance on BM ashing and reduce the number of experiments while retains the quality of data collection, the response surface methodology (RSM), one kind of designed experiment methodologies were used. The oxygen ratio (feeds into plasma as a radical source), substrate temperature and plasma power were the major factors of discussion for BM ashing characteristics. The surface profiler and scanning probe microscope were used to define ashing rate. Besides, the optical emission spectrometry was used to detect the reaction species of the plasma. It was found that the ashing rate was increasing while the O₂/N₂ ratio and the substrate temperature increasing. Finally, the relationship between the processing factors and the reactive species concentrations of APPJ of BM ashing was also studied.