PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 16359388
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2019-03
Publication Date: 2019-07
Patent Classification: ["427", "569000"]

Abstract:
An aluminum gas distribution plate refurbishment system combines a multi-beam inductively coupled plasma (AP-ICP) torch and vacuum discharge chuck. Plasma beams are employed to clean and restore to service the many gas flow passages in aluminum type gas distribution plates. Several parallel supersonic plasma beams of uniform density are produced from a single upper and lower AP-ICP plasma reactor arranged in totem pole that are driven by two pairs of opposing spiral planar RF induction RF antennas. These plasma beams are focused inside the gas flow passages to etch, heat, and deposit nanoparticles within. The vacuum discharge chuck includes a capacitively coupled plasma (CCP) reactor to generate a positive species discharge immediately beneath the gas distribution plates. This overcomes and undoes a Debye Sheathing effect, a electron-fed negative space charge blocking occurring above, and unknots any congested plasma beams in the gas flow passages.

Claim (Index 8):
An aluminum gas distribution plate refurbishment system, comprising:\n a plasma reactor that produces a plurality of plasma beams and that includes an atmospheric pressure, inductively coupled plasma (AP-ICP) torch with an upper plasma reactor coupled to a lower plasma reactor and comprising an upper quartz confinement tube between a first pair of planar spiral-coil RF antennas powered by a first source of radio frequency (RF) energy, and a lower quartz confinement tube between a second pair of planar spiral-coil RF antennas powered by a second source of RF energy; a nanopowder input that receives nanopowders that are pre-melted in the upper plasma reactor, and then vaporized in the lower plasma reactor, and then delivered in the plasma beam through the nozzle and extractor and deposited to an inside wall of a corresponding through-hole in an aluminum gas distribution plate as gas flow passages each on the order of one millimeter in diameter; a sheathing gas input and a selectable discharge gas input selectable amongst argon, hydrogen, and hydrogen chloride gases to variously support etching, cleaning, heating, depositing, and annealing of inside walls of the gas flow passages and in a sequence; a dielectric barrier discharge device connected to de-aggregate yttrium oxide nanopowders before they are input to the plasma reactor for a more effective pre-melting by the upper plasma reactor and a more thorough vaporization by the lower plasma reactor; an extractor that pulls each plasma beam from a nozzle in the plasma reactor and imparts a focus to the plasma beam while directing and focusing the plasma beam from above into an entrance of a through-hole on a first surface an aluminum gas distribution plate; an auxiliary plasma reactor that generates a capacitively coupled plasma (CCP) discharge just beneath the aluminum gas distribution plate adjacent to a second opposite surface near an exit of the through-hole; wherein, the CCP discharge counteracts and unknots any Debye blockage of the gas flow passages within the aluminum gas distribution plate and drain them of Debye electron charge electrons such that the focused plasma beam is enabled to completely penetrate the inside walls of the gas flow passages well enough to etch, clean, heat, deposit a coating from a nanopowder vapor, and anneal the coating in sequence; wherein, each plasma beam is enabled thereby to completely penetrate a corresponding through-hole from its entrance to its exit by contact with the CCP discharge; wherein, a plasma density and a nanopowder vapor density of each of the plurality of focused plasma beams are balanced by alterations to the RF antennas and nanopowder inputs to simultaneously produce ultimately uniform plasma spots and rates of nanoparticle deposition within several gas flow passages.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 4.0
- Percentile: 99.0
- Lexical Diversity: 1.62887
- Patent Class: 427.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['14164168', '14164179', '14164182', '09607922', '14660531']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.8026917488713539
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.4906199197920641
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.771484565963425
- Mean Citation Score: 213.25400600000003
- Max Citation Score: 240.54193
- Similarity Product: 195.049781242643

Labels:
- Claim Label 101: 1
- Claim Label 102: 1
- Claim Label 103: 1
- Claim Label 112: 0
- Combined Label: 1
- Label 101 Adjusted: 1

Dataset: test