Inline monitoring of hydrogenous plasma-induced defect formation within fused silica via plasma emission spectroscopy

Abstract In this paper, the indirect monitoring of plasma-induced defect formation within fused silica via plasma emission spectroscopy is presented. It is shown that low-pressure plasma treatment with hydrogen as process gas leads to a decrease in UV transmission of fused silica. This decrease can be directly attributed to oxygen vacancy-related defects and the presence of hydrogen within the silicon dioxide glass network. By the analysis of the plasma composition, it was observed that the amount of oxygen within the plasma increases with increasing treatment duration. Hence, oxygen was continuously released from glass network in the course of the plasma treatment. It was further observed that this release is strongly dependent on the applied plasma power where the lowest process efficiency occurs at the highest plasma power. It is shown that an increase in plasma power leads to a remarkable increase in light emission from the working gas, hydrogen. This observation indicates that the higher the degree of excitation and ionisation of the plasma, the lower the efficiency of plasma-induced formation of oxygen deficiency-related defects. This finding is of mentionable relevance for a better understanding of plasma-induced surface modification and coating processes.