Inductively Coupled Plasma Source with Internal Straight Antenna

Abstract

An inductively coupled plasma source with an internal straight antenna was developed. By inserting an antenna into plasma, the induction of a strong electric field in the plasma and the efficient transmissions of power to plasma is enabled. However, there was a practical problem in that antenna sputtering occurred. Suppression of antenna sputtering and methods of insulating the antenna were studied. Consequently, it was found that sputtering impurities were reduced by covering the straight antenna with a quartz pipe. Furthermore, the amount of quartz pipe etching could be reduced to as little as 1/10th the original value. As a result of fabricating and evaluating the plasma source in which four straight antennas were arranged in parallel, electron density was determined to be as high as 1011 cm-3 even at a pressure as low as 4 mTorr. When the processing performance of the plasma source was evaluated, the ashing rate of the photoresist and the etching rate of the poly-Si were, respectively, 4.8 µm/min and 450 nm/min. These values are at practically applicable levels.

Transient plasma potential in pulsed dual frequency inductively coupled plasmas and effect of substrate biasing

“…[1][2][3] As the number of transistors in a single chip is increasing by a factor of ∼ 2 in a year and therefore device size is continuously shrinking, that results in increasing fabrication cost. To optimize the fabrication cost, it is necessary to do plasma processing at large area wafer.…”

Nanocrystalline Si:H films made by inductively coupled plasma using internal low inductance antenna

“…For manufacturing solar panels using a plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PE-CVD) process, a higher plasma density and a larger yet uniform plasma zone are thus advantageous. Many methods have been proposed to generate such high-density plasmas [5][6][7], and recently, an inductively coupled plasma (ICP) system using arrays of internal low inductance antennas (LIA) has been proposed to produce large-area, highly crystallized ncSi:H films [8][9][10]. The LIA units can produce high-density plasma with low plasma potential (as low as 10 V, thus low plasma damage to the deposited film) by decreasing the electrostatic coupling within the plasma.…”

Effects of RF Power and Working Pressure on the Properties of Nc-Si:H Thin Films Deposited by an ICP-CVD System

“…Many methods so far have been proposed to generate plasma containing high-density radicals [1][2][3]. Recently, it was reported that highly crystallized nc-Si films with good interface quality could be deposited by certain inductively coupled plasma chemical vapor deposition (ICP-CVD) system equipped with internal low-inductance-antennas (LIA) [4].…”