Production and Control of Large-Area Plasmas for Meters-Scale Flat-Panel-Display Processing with Multiple Low-Inductance Antenna Modules

Abstract

Plasma technologies for meters‐scale flat‐panel‐display (FPD) processing have been developed using multiple low‐inductance antenna (LIA) modules to drive inductively coupled plasmas (ICPs), in which RF‐power‐deposition profiles can be controlled in plasma reactors with a scale as large as meters. The LIA module consisted of a U‐shaped internal antenna with dielectric isolation, each of which was coupled to an RF power system for independent power control of driving ICP. Our new proposal of the unique source configuration is based on the principle of multiple operation and integrated control of LIA modules, which allow low‐voltage high‐density plasma production with active control of power deposition profiles. Multiple LIA modules mounted on the wall of a discharge chamber were independently controlled to attain the desired plasma profiles. Experiments with a meter‐scale rectangular reactor resulted in stable source operation to attain high densities >1011 cm−3. Plasma‐enhanced chemical vapor deposition of amorphous hydrogenated carbon films showed an excellent control capability of film‐thickness distributions to achieve the film‐thickness uniformity of 8.6%, which was defined as the value of (maximum thickness − minimum thickness) divided by the average thickness over the substrate area of 410 mm × 520 mm. The obtained results indicate that the plasma production and/or control technologies with the LIA modules are quite attractive as a high‐density low‐potential plasma source for a variety of FPD processes.

Large-area low-damage plasma sources driven by multiple low-inductance-antenna modules for next-generation flat-panel display processes

“…This tendency for having a peak at the center of the substrate and/or the center of the deposition chamber is due to the nature of significant charged-particle loss at the side walls, which in turn makes the plasma profile tend to peak at the center. Furthermore, this tendency of the non-uniform profile is confirmed to be consistent with our previous results for the film thickness distribution of the hydrogenated amorphous carbon films [21].…”

“…In order to provide straightforward and promising solutions to overcome the problems described above, a series of our works [17][18][19][20][21] have been carried out on the basis of the plasma-generation and profile-control technologies employing multiple low-inductance antenna (LIA) modules, whose antenna size is substantially shorter than the propagation wavelength, to sustain meter-scale inductivelycoupled plasmas, whose concepts are schematically shown in Fig. 1.…”

Discharge profiles of internal-antenna-driven inductively-coupled plasmas

“…In our previous studies [10][11][12][13][14][15][16], we have demonstrated that this unique antenna for ICP generation allows high-density (10 11 -10 12 cm − 3 ) plasma production with low plasma damage (as low as 10 V) via low-voltage operation of ICPs. Furthermore the internal-antenna configuration with the LIA units has the feature of flexibility to meet various configurations of plasma sources.…”

Properties of argon/oxygen mixture plasmas driven by multiple internal-antenna units

“…In our previous studies [10][11][12][13][14][15][16], we demonstrated that the configuration with multiple LIA units for ICP generation allowed high-density (10 11 -10 12 cm − 3 ) plasma production with high power-transfer efficiency (as high as 90%) and low plasma potential (as low as 6 V). The ICP sources with LIA units are considered to be one of the most promising candidates as plasma sources for low-damage and high-quality processes [17,18].…”