The plasma deposition apparatus developed in this study can realize a deposition of dense and high quality thin films, such as Si3N4 and SiO2, without the need for substrate heating. It does this by enhancing the plasma excitation efficiency at low gas pressures (10-4 Torr) and by the acceleration effect of ions with moderate energies (10 to 20 eV), using a microwave ECR (Electron Cyclotron Resonance) excited plasma, and a plasma stream extraction onto the specimen table by a divergent magnetic field method. The Si3N4 and SiO2 films deposited are comparable to those prepared by high temperature CVD and thermal oxidation, respectively, in evaluations such as by buffered HF solution etch rate measurement.
Articles you may be interested inPlasma enhanced direct current planar magnetron sputtering technique employing a twinned microwave electron cyclotron resonance plasma source
A novel electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) processing apparatus has been developed to improve processing uniformity by adjusting the plasma refractive index determined by the magnetic field distribution in the ECR plasma chamber. With SiO2 deposition, an excellent uniformity of ±1% for six-inch wafers and ±2% for eight-inch wafers has been obtained. The conditions required for specimen processing, such as perpendicular ion incidence, can be selected independently of uniformity because uniformity is controlled only at the plasma generation region. This method can also be applied to other ECR techniques, such as ECR ion-stream etching.
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