[en] The system described is for the high speed cathodic spraying of a deposit on to a substrate. Placed in a pumped containment, it includes a target brought to a negative potential in relation to an anode and means to bring a gas to pressure P in the volume included between the target and anode. It also includes a system to establish a high gaseous pressure gradient between the target and the substrate

[en] We developed a model for the nucleation, growth and transport of carbonaceous dust particles in a non-reactive gas dc discharge where the carbon source is provided by cathode sputtering. In a first part, we considered only the initial phase of the discharge when the dust charge density remains small with respect to the electron density. We found that an electric field reversal at the entrance of the negative glow region promotes trapping of negatively charged clusters and dust particles, confining them for long times in the plasma and favoring molecular growth. An essential ingredient for this process is electron attachment, which negatively charges the initially neutral clusters. We also showed that the field reversal mechanism can operate to trap negative clusters and particles under both electropositive and strongly electronegative plasma.

[en] The high concentration level of doping which can be introduced in the non equilibrium state of a matrix has recently focused much interest. In particular, cosputtering has been used to introduce in-situ controled amounts of gold and aluminium in Cdsub(0.2) Hgsub(0.8 Te alloys. p or n doped thin films of these alloys has been deposited by sputtering in a mercury vapour plasma, and p-n junctions has been realised. The properties of the so-made infra-red detectors are given

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[en] The controversy about experimental properties of cathode spots is reviewed with special consideration of clean surfaces. From arc tracks in vacuum it is concluded that the density of the emitted electron current is as high as 10¹² A/m². It is demonstrated that the spots are very non stationary with basic time constants of the order of nanoseconds, in spite of the thermal inertia of the cathode metal. This can be explained by models of convective heat transport. It is suggested that much more metal is molten than finally removed, so the erosion rate is not a simple measure of surface heating phenomena. Ignition of spots by plasmas is always due to an interaction with surface contaminants. This is also the reason for conditioning phenomena with arcs in fusion devices. In the presence of strong magnetic fields the latter exhibit an additional voltage drop outside the spot. Therefore they are possible only as transient events during instabilities of the fusion plasma. (author)

[en] Electric conductors, at least on the surface, contaminated by a radioactive material are taken as target for cathode sputtering and the contaminant is deposited on a support at a high positive potential in respect to the target

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