US 10,948,653 B2Granted

Apparatus for bonding wafers and an optically-transparent thin film made from the same

AssigneePartow Technologies, LLC.

InventorsPayam Rabiei, Jamie Nam, Amir Torkaman, Seyfollah Toroghi

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Abstract

A novel apparatus for bonding of two polished substrates includes a plasma source in a ultra-high vacuum (UHV) chamber and a wafer-guiding element to control and guide wafers in the UHV chamber, where after a plasma activation process the wafers are guided and pressed against each other to form a covalent bond between wafer surfaces. The plasma activation process involves deposition of mono-layer or sub-monolayer metallic atom on the surface of substrates. After deposition of metallic layers, a high-force actuation presses the wafers and forms a covalent bond between the wafers. Then, the bonded wafer pair is ion-sliced or thinned to form single crystalline optical thin film. An annealing process oxidizes the deposited metallic layers and produces optically-transparent single crystalline thin film. An optical waveguide may be fabricated by this thin film while utilizing an electro-optic effect to produce optical modulators and other photonic devices.

Claims8

Dependent claims

A wafer-bonding apparatus for bonding two wafers comprising:

a vacuum chamber;
a hinge element controlled by an electric motor for position changes and guiding of wafers inside the vacuum chamber;
a first wafer chuck and a second wafer chuck attached to the hinge element to hold the two wafers separately prior to bonding, wherein the first wafer chuck, the second wafer chuck, and the hinge element, when commanded by an apparatus operator, are configured to move to a wafer-bonding position that applies a massive compression pressure on the two wafers with a bond actuator element to bond the two wafers;
the bond actuator element with a pneumatic or hydraulic shaft configured to be pushed into the vacuum chamber to provide the massive compression pressure on the first wafer chuck and the second wafer chuck holding the two wafers during the wafer-bonding position;
and
a plasma source located above the vacuum chamber, wherein the plasma source is configured to be activated for several seconds in preparation of bonding the two wafers.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 16/852,527Filed 19 Apr 2020 · division
Priority: 26 Jan 2018
Published: US 2020/0249394 A16 Aug 2020
Granted: 16 Mar 2021
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification11 codes

G02B 6/122
Of the integrated circuit kind: basic optical elements, e.g. light-guiding paths
G02B 6/02295
Optical fibres with cladding with or without a coating: microstructured optical fibre
G02B 6/12007
Of the integrated circuit kind: forming wavelength selective elements, e.g. multiplexer, demultiplexer
G02B 6/13
Of the integrated circuit kind: integrated optical circuits characterised by the manufacturing method

Family

Application62/622,785Us provisional application · filed 26 Jan 2018
Application16/258,546Parent of this division · filed 26 Jan 2019
US 2020/0249394 A1Pre-grant publication · published 6 Aug 2020
US 10,663,661 B1Parent of this division
US 10,948,653 B2This patent

From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.