Publications by Christoph Hollenstein

Related publications (57)

Hydrogen-dominated plasma, due to silane depletion, for microcrystalline silicon deposition

Christoph Hollenstein, Alan Howling, Raffaello Sobbia

Plasma conditions for microcrystalline silicon deposition generally require a high flux of atomic hydrogen, relative to SiH alpha=0 -> 3 radicals, on the growing film. The necessary dominant partial pressure of hydrogen in the plasma is conventionally obta ...

American Vacuum Society2010

Powder formation in SiH[sub 4]–H[sub 2] discharge in large area capacitively coupled reactors: A study of the combined effect of interelectrode distance and pressure

Christoph Hollenstein, Benjamin Strahm

One of the main challenges for silicon thin film deposition for solar cell applications is to achieve high rate deposition in order to reduce the manufacturing costs. However, when silane and hydrogen are used as precursor gas in parallel plate plasma-enha ...

American Institute of Physics2010

Plasma Spray-CVD: A New Thermal Spray Process to Produce Thin Films from Liquid or Gaseous Precursors

Christoph Hollenstein, Philippe Frédérique Bruno Guittienne, Malko Gindrat

New dedicated coating processes which are based on the well-known LPPS (TM) technology but operating at lower work pressure (100 Pa) are being actively developed. These hybrid technologies contribute to improve the efficiencies in the turbine industry such ...

2011

Direct current breakdown in gases for complex geometries from high vacuum to atmospheric pressure

Christoph Hollenstein, Alan Howling, Ralph Schnyder

The demand for improved performances of power transmission devices requires ever smaller dimensions and higher working voltages which lead to increased risk of breakdown, for example, in satellite slip rings. Previous works are mostly limited to breakdown ...

Iop Publishing Ltd2013

Analysis of resonant planar dissipative network antennas for rf inductively coupled plasma sources

Christoph Hollenstein, Alan Howling, Philippe Frédérique Bruno Guittienne

The analysis of a radio-frequency (RF) planar antenna is presented for applications in plasma processing. The antenna is a network of elementary meshes composed of inductive and capacitive elements which exhibits a set of resonant modes. The high currents ...

Iop Publishing Ltd2014

Radio frequency breakdown between structured parallel plate electrodes with a millimetric gap in low pressure gases

Christoph Hollenstein, Alan Howling, Boris Legradic

This paper presents an investigation into radio frequency (rf) breakdown for electrodes with holes or protrusions, approximating the situation in real reactors and providing a benchmark for fluid simulations. rf breakdown curves (voltage versus pressure) g ...

American Institute of Physics2010

Multiple dehydrogenation reactions of negative ions in low pressure silane plasma chemistry

Christoph Hollenstein, Alan Howling, Antoine Descoeudres

Micro-particle formation in low pressure silane (SiH4) plasmas has been of technical interest and concern for at least 40 years. Negative ion plasma chemistry is a candidate for the initial nucleation, which has been extensively studied both experimentally ...

2020

Industrial plasmas in academia

Christoph Hollenstein, Ivo Furno, Alan Howling, Philippe Frédérique Bruno Guittienne

The present review, written at the occasion of the 2014 EPS Innovation award, will give a short overview of the research and development of industrial plasmas within the last 30 years and will also provide a first glimpse into future developments of this i ...

Iop Publishing Ltd2015

Low ion energy RF reactor using an array of plasmas through a grounded grid

Christoph Hollenstein, Alan Howling, Michaël Chesaux

A reactor using localized remote plasma in a grid electrode is presented in this study. The aim is to reduce the ion bombardment energy inherent in RF capacitively coupled parallel plate reactors used to deposit large area thin film silicon solar cells. Hi ...

A V S Amer Inst Physics2013

Time-resolved imaging and spatially-resolved spectroscopy of electrical discharge machining plasma

Christoph Hollenstein, Antoine Descoeudres, Ricardo Pérez Suárez

The plasma created during electrical discharge machining is investigated with imaging and spatially-resolved optical emission spectroscopy. Analysis of the pre-breakdown duration shows that the breakdown is of stochastic nature. Due to the presence of gas ...

2005

Plasma deposition in an ideal showerhead reactor: a two-dimensional analytical solution

Christoph Hollenstein, Alan Howling, Boris Legradic, Michaël Chesaux

The interplay of gas flow and depletion by plasma dissociation determines the spatial distribution of species and the deposition uniformity in a plasma source. Many plasma reactors use a gas showerhead and the design of the flow dynamics is a critical aspe ...

2012

The influence of process parameters on precursor evaporation for alumina nanopowder synthesis in an inductively coupled rf thermal plasma

Christoph Hollenstein, Jong-Won Shin

The process parameters of an inductively coupled thermal plasma used for nanopowder synthesis are experimentally investigated using various plasma diagnostics and in situ powder monitoring methods. An enthalpy probe technique is applied to characterize the ...

2006

Influence of Argon and Nitrogen Admixture in HMDSO/O-2 Plasmas onto Powder Formation

Christoph Hollenstein, Marina Ricci

In situ Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy was used to study the powder formation of hexamethyldisiloxane/O-2 plasmas. The spectra show that oxygen plays an important role at the beginning of the process. A large amount of oxygen is responsible for in ...

2011

Electromagnetic sources of nonuniformity in large area capacitive reactors

Christoph Hollenstein, Alan Howling, Laurent Fabien Hubert Sansonnens

Theory and experiment show that two electromagnetic modes are necessary and sufficient to determine the field nonuniformity within a parallel-plate rf capacitive plasma reactor. These two modes give rise to the standing wave effect and the telegraph effect ...

2007

Resonant RF network antennas for large-area and large-volume inductively coupled plasma sources

Christoph Hollenstein, Alan Howling, Philippe Frédérique Bruno Guittienne

Large-area and large-volume radio frequency (RF) plasmas are produced by different arrangements of an elementary electrical mesh consisting of two conductors interconnected by a capacitor at each end. The obtained cylindrical and planar RF networks are res ...

Iop Publishing Ltd2013

Non-intrusive plasma diagnostics for the deposition of large area thin film silicon

Christoph Hollenstein, Alan Howling, Benjamin Strahm

Plasma diagnostics for large area, industrial RF parallel-plate reactors can be useful for process optimization and monitoring, provided that their implementation is practical and non-intrusive. For instance, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) absorption sp ...

Elsevier2009

Fast equilibration of silane/hydrogen plasmas in large area RF capacitive reactors monitored by optical emission spectroscopy

Christoph Hollenstein, Alan Howling, Laurent Fabien Hubert Sansonnens, Benjamin Strahm

The optimal plasma parameters for plasma processing, such as deposition of microcrystalline silicon from silane and hydrogen, are generally chosen in steady-state discharge conditions. However, this steady state must be reached in a short time after plasma ...

2007

High Voltage Pulsed DBD Effects on the Aerodynamic Performances and on the Shock Buffet

Christoph Hollenstein, Peter Ott, Pénélope Leyland, Philip Peschke

The applications of surface dielectric barrier discharge plasma actuators, (DBD), have known a considerable interest recently in the field of flow control. In general, such actuators consist of two electrodes separated by an insulation covering the lower e ...

2013

Application of the shaped electrode technique to a large area rectangular capacitively coupled plasma reactor to suppress standing wave nonuniformity

Christoph Hollenstein, Alan Howling, Laurent Fabien Hubert Sansonnens, Hannes Schmidt

The electromagnetic standing wave effect can become the main source of nonuniformity limiting the use of very high frequency in large area reactors exceeding 1 m(2) required for industrial applications. Recently, it has been proposed and shown experimental ...

2006

Plasma generation by inductive coupling with a planar resonant RF network antenna

Christoph Hollenstein, Alan Howling, Philippe Frédérique Bruno Guittienne, Sylvain Lecoultre

A planar antenna operating at 13.56MHz is presented for potential applications in plasma processing. It consists of interconnected elementary resonant meshes composed of inductive and capacitive elements. Due to its structure, the antenna exhibits a set of ...

2012