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US 11,239,091 B2Granted
Etching of metal oxides using fluorine and metal halides
AssigneeApplied Materials, Inc.
InventorsKeenan N. Woods, Zhenjiang Cui, Mark Saly
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Embodiments of this disclosure provide methods for etching oxide materials. Some embodiments of this disclosure provide methods which selectively etch oxide materials over other materials. In some embodiments, the methods of this disclosure are performed by atomic layer etching (ALE). In some embodiments, the methods of this disclosure are performed within a processing chamber comprising a nickel chamber material.
Claims20
An etch process comprising:
- exposing a substrate surface having an oxide layer thereon to a fluorinating agent to form a fluoride layer;
- and
- exposing the fluoride layer to a halide etchant to remove the fluoride layer, the halide etchant comprising a compound having the general formula MXy, where M comprises one or more of titanium (Ti), tin (Sn), molybdenum (Mo), tungsten (W) or niobium (Nb), and X comprises one or more of Cl, Br or I.
An etch process comprising:
- exposing a substrate surface having an oxyhydride layer thereon to a fluorinating agent to form a fluoride layer;
- and
- exposing the fluoride layer to a halide etchant to remove the fluoride layer, the halide etchant comprising a compound having the general formula MXy, where M comprises one or more of titanium (Ti), tin (Sn), molybdenum (Mo), tungsten (W) or niobium (Nb), and X comprises one or more of Cl, Br or I.
An etch process comprising:
- exposing a substrate surface having an oxide layer and a second material to a fluorinating agent in a process chamber comprising a nickel chamber material to selectively convert a portion of the oxide layer to a fluoride layer, the second material comprising one or more of TiN, SiN, TaN, SiO, AlO, LaO, carbon, silicon or combinations thereof;
- and
- exposing the fluoride layer to a halide etchant to remove the fluoride layer, the halide etchant comprising a compound having the general formula MXy, where M comprises one or more of titanium (Ti), tin (Sn), molybdenum (Mo), tungsten (W) or niobium (Nb), and X comprises one or more of Cl, Br or I.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.