No abstract

The electrode products emitted by vacuum arcs in the form of molten metal particles were studied for Au, Pd, and Mg in the current range 2−6 A. The study includes the size distribution of these molten metal particles, the volume carried by these particles versus the volume carried by the metal vapor, and the velocity distribution of these particles. It was found that the ratio of volumes carried by the particles and the vapor is greatly dependent on the cathode material.

It was found that arc potential rises discontinously when the separation between two electrodes reaches a critical distance which has a certain functional dependence on the ambient gas pressure and the arc current. This phenomenon is discussed quantitatively as being caused by diffusion of metal vapor from the cathode spot to the surrounding gas in hemispherical geometry.

No abstract

The cathode spot temperatures of various metals in vacuum arcs have been measured for the first time on the basis of the Maxwellian portion of velocity distribution of the vapor atoms emanating from the cathode spot region by employing the combined technique of time-of-flight and quadrupole mass analysis.

No abstract

Articles you may be interested inPerformances by the electron optical system of low energy electron beam proximity projection lithography tool with a large scanning field J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B 23, 2754 (2005); 10.1116/1.2062435 Resolution-limiting factors in low-energy electron-beam proximity projection lithography: Mask, projection, and resist process Development of an electron-beam lithography system for high accuracy masks J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B 21, 823 (2003); 10.1116/1.1547725Sub-50 nm stencil mask for low-energy electron-beam projection lithography Proximity effect correction using pattern shape modification and area density map for electron-beam projection lithography J.

Low-energy e-beam proximity lithography (LEEPL) is proposed as the simplest integrated circuit lithography for minimum feature sizes ≤0.1 µm. This new e-beam lithography is similar to 1× X-ray proximity lithography except that the X-ray beam is replaced with a beam of low-energy electrons of 2 kV. This low e-beam energy permits the use of single-crystal 0.5-µm-thick silicon stencil masks without an absorbing metal layer of high atomic number. This membrane mask is thick enough for good heat conduction and thin enough for feature sizes ≤0.1 µm. Mask distortion caused by fabrication can be corrected by a fine-tuning deflector. Therefore, a mask with a residual distortion of more than 100 nm is acceptable. This eliminates the main difficulty of X-ray proximity lithography. The proposed system is not affected by a space-charge effect in the electron optics column, and a proximity effect with respect to both wafer and mask writings, and it is fundamentally low-power lithography which needs no special cooling system. The analysis shows that the e-beam column can be made entirely of electrostatic components to achieve sufficient resolution. For an appropriate resist process for this low-energy e-beam, we propose a bilayer process such as the chemical amplification of resist lines (CARL) process which consists of a chemically amplified thin deep ultraviolet (DUV) photoresist and a thick planarizing layer as a starting point. We estimated a throughput of about 40 12 inch wafers per hour and a resolution of a significantly less than 50 nm.