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US 12,617,146 B1Granted
Atmospheric pressure plasma reduction of copper oxide to copper metal
AssigneeSurfx Technologies LLC
InventorsJoyce Lee, Thomas Scott Williams, Robert F. Hicks
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Abstract
Copper oxide films can be reduced to copper with an atmospheric pressure argon and hydrogen plasma at temperatures between 25 and 300° C. A 50-nm-thick CuO layer on a Cu-coated Si wafer, 200 mm in diameter, can be fully reduced by the plasma in 200 seconds at 200° C. The activation energy for the reaction can be approximately 3.7 kcal/mol. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy can show the copper oxide reduced to metallic copper.
Claims10
A method of producing an ionized gas plasma comprising:
- directing gas flow comprising an inert gas and hydrogen from an inlet through a flow path within a housing to an outlet for plasma comprising reactive hydrogen species;
- directing the gas flow within the housing between a powered electrode surface of a power electrode and a grounded electrode surface of a ground electrode, the grounded electrode surface closely spaced from the powered electrode surface;
- delivering radio frequency power coupled to the power electrode and the ground electrode from a power supply to ionize the gas flow and produce the plasma comprising the reactive hydrogen species from the hydrogen;
- and
- disposing a copper material within an enclosure near the outlet of the housing to receive the reactive hydrogen species;
- wherein copper oxide on the copper material is removed by reaction with the reactive hydrogen species to produce copper metal and water vapor.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.