The inertial electrostatic confinement (IEC) has been commonly researched in the scope of application for space propulsion and fusions reactors since many years. The utilization as thruster is possible due to a free emitting stream in a so-called jet mode of the IEC source. Depending on the setup, this jet can be operated as high energetic electron beam (tight jet) with electron energies of several keV or as low energetic plasma jet close to quasineutrality (spray jet). These modes are of high interest for thin film applications and plasma treatment. However, the IEC source is still not used in this field of application. Relevant application scopes can be electron substrate heating, surface plasma pretreatment, ionized physical vapor deposition and plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition. In this paper, a cylindrical IEC source is presented that emits the plasma in both known jet modes, spray jet and tight jet. The jet emission occurs in radial outlet direction along the entire source height (“curtain-like” emission). Furthermore, an ignition test and operational behavior test is introduced. A stable spray jet operation region was examined and dependencies on pressure and voltage are investigated.

多年来，惯性静电约束（IEC）一直在空间推进和聚变反应堆的应用范围内得到普遍研究。由于 IEC 源的所谓喷射模式中的自由发射流，因此可以用作推进器。根据设置，该射流可以作为具有几个 keV 电子能量的高能电子束（紧射流）或接近准中性的低能等离子射流（喷雾射流）操作。这些模式对薄膜应用和等离子处理很有吸引力。但是，IEC 源仍未用于该应用领域。相关应用范围可以是电子基板加热、表面等离子体预处理、电离物理气相沉积和等离子体增强化学气相沉积。在本文中，提出了一个圆柱形 IEC 源，它以两种已知的射流模式发射等离子体，喷射射流和紧射流。射流发射沿整个源高度沿径向出口方向发生（“幕状”发射）。此外，还介绍了点火测试和操作行为测试。检查了稳定的喷射射流操作区域并研究了对压力和电压的依赖性。