How is NF3 used to make flat-screen televisions and computers?
When hit with microwave discharge or a plasma beam, NF3 releases fluorine atoms that are used to clean the chamber in which flat-screen liquid crystal display panels are made. It also can be used to release fluorine to etch and cut the silicon substrate for computer chips. As I understand it, NF3 is used in large volumes in the LCD screen process. Q: Why do you consider NF3 the “missing greenhouse gas”? A: NF3 is not included in the Kyoto Protocol list of greenhouse gases. This fact is perhaps an oddity. NF3, like many synthetic greenhouse gases, was not recognized specifically as a major industrial gas in 1995 when the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report listed the global warming potentials of many greenhouse gases. The rapid rise in production by the chemical industry had gone almost unnoticed. Q: Is UCI measuring NF3, and if so, how? A: The labs of Eric Saltzman and Murat Aydin in Earth system science are preparing to measure the atmospheric abundance of
