| abstract |
The present invention provides a soft plasma cleaning (SPC) system (30, 130, 230) comprising a guided soft-plasma cleaning (G-SPC) The SPC system is a non-thermal, low temperature process that can operate at both atmospheric pressure, air and liquid media. In one embodiment, a feedstock gas 40 is provided to provide a discharge fluid 50 in the cleaning chamber 34. The plasma guiding and amplification component 52 also guides and expands the discharge fluid to cover a large ablation area on the workpiece 32 thereby also suppressing ion and electron impact damage or etching. The plasma guiding and amplifying component 52 can be formed of dielectric plates or tubes 37, 56, 58, each of which has openings 37a, 56a, 58a. The electric field and ion energy within the cleaning chamber may be additionally controlled through the floating electrode 160, 160a to suppress plasma damage during SPC |