The investigation of the microwave energy penetration (f = 2,45 ± 0,05 GHz) in the center of the oxygen gas discharge in the resonant type plasmatron was carried out on the example of microwave plasma-chemical processing of silicon plates. The investigation was performed by three independent methods: using a thermocouple for investigating temperature characteristics of the microwave discharge; according to the data of the "active probe" which was injected into the volume of discharge chamber; using an electric probe which was placed in the volume of plasma for measuring the electrical conductivity of the space. The experimental results indicate that for the levels of microwave power flux density in the discharge volume ranging within 0.06-0.08 W/cm 3 the microwave field is entered into the volume of the discharge zone. This effect must be taken into account when organizing the processes of plasmachemical treatment (the influence of microwave field on the parameters of the processed structures, explanation of "loading effect", when chosen construction of a system for supplying microwave energy to the treatment area, in the analysis forms and character of microwave field distribution in the gas discharge area, etc.) and for analysing the results of processing of materials and semiconductor structures which may be exposed to microwave energy.
At present, the research for finding new technical methods of treating materials with plasma, including the development of energy and resource saving technologies for microelectronic manufacturing, is particularly actual.In order to improve the efficiency of microwave plasma chemical ashing of photoresist films from the surface of silicon wafers a two-stage process of treating was developed. The idea of the developed process is that wafers coated with photoresist are pre-heated by microwave energy. This occurs because the microwave energy initially is not spent on the excitation and maintenance of a microwave discharge but it is absorbed by silicon wafers which have a high tangent of dielectric losses. During the next step after the excitation of the microwave discharge the interaction of oxygen plasma with a pre-heated photoresist films proceeds more intensively. The delay of the start of plasma forming process in the vacuum chamber of a plasmatron with respect to the beginning of microwave energy generation by a magnetron leads to the increase of the total rate of photoresist ashing from the surface of silicon wafers approximately 1.7 times. The advantage of this method of microwave plasma chemical processing of semi-conductor wafers is the possibility of intensifying the process without changing the design of microwave discharge module and without increasing the input microwave power supplied into the discharge.
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