Plasma switches off

Issue

Plasma goes out before going into operate state directly after the slide valve has opened

Environment

iCAP Q
iCAP RQ
Qtegra
ECCN: EAR99

Resolution

Click on Edit in Measurement Mode grouping in Instrument Control software
The most current row of settings as indicated by the blue highlighted row is the group of settings which will be loaded at the end of the Start Up sequence directly before the instrument goes into Operate state
Scroll over until the "Cool Flow", "Auxiliary Flow", and "Plasma Power" settings are visible. These values should NOT be ‘0’. If any of them are, proceed to next step.
Click on Tune Settings
Click on STD
Click on Load
From the Control Panel, adjust the slider bars so that the "Cool gas" = 14, "Auxilliary gas" = 0.8, and the "Plasma power" = 1550.
Click Save. Qtegra will now use the new saved setting(s) upon going into Operate state after the slide valve opens.
Try lighting the plasma again. The instrument should now go into Operate state.

Analysis

There could be other parameters, such as lens voltages, which could have changed but would not have caused the plasma to go out. It is a good idea once in Operate state to go to the Edit window (see step 1) and check the other parameters to make sure they match up with the values which were used the last time you successfully ran the instrument. Another way to do this would be to compare the current values in the Control Panel once in Operate state with the values from the most recent passing performance report.

Cause

Most of the time this is due to a plasma related setting being set to ‘0’ in the measurement mode because upon going into Operate state, Qtegra sets the instrument settings to whatever is listed in the measurement mode.