In-situ carbon liner for high aspect ratio features

A semiconductor processing method comprising:

• i) providing one or more etchant precursors to a processing region of a semiconductor processing chamber, wherein a substrate is disposed within the processing region of the semiconductor processing chamber;
• ii) generating plasma effluents of the one or more etchant precursors;
• iii) performing an etching process to etch a first portion of a feature in the substrate disposed within the processing region, wherein the first portion of the feature at least partially extends through one or more layers of material formed on the substrate;
• iv) halting the etching process;
• v) subsequent to halting the etching process, providing a flashing precursor to the processing region of the semiconductor processing chamber;
• vi) removing etchant byproducts from the substrate;
• vii) subsequent to removing etchant byproducts from the substrate, providing a carbon-containing precursor to the processing region of the semiconductor processing chamber;
• viii) generating plasma effluents of the carbon-containing precursor;
• ix) forming a carbon-containing material on the substrate, wherein the carbon-containing material lines the first portion of the feature at least partially extending through the one or more layers of material formed on the substrate;
• and
• x) subsequent to forming the carbon-containing material on the substrate, repeating operations i) through ix) for at least five cycles.

A semiconductor processing method comprising:

• performing an etching process to etch a first portion of a feature in a substrate disposed within a processing region of a semiconductor processing chamber, wherein the feature at least partially extends through one or more alternating layers of material formed on the substrate;
• halting the etching process;
• subsequent to halting the etching process, providing a fluorocarbon precursor to the processing region of the semiconductor processing chamber;
• generating plasma effluents of the fluorocarbon precursor, wherein the plasma effluents of the fluorocarbon precursor are generated at a plasma power of less than or about 1,500 W;
• contacting the substrate with the plasma effluents of the fluorocarbon precursor;
• forming a conformal polymeric carbon-containing material on the substrate, wherein the conformal polymeric carbon-containing material lines the feature at least partially extending through the one or more alternating layers of material formed on the substrate, and wherein a thickness of the conformal polymeric carbon-containing material is between about 5 nm and about 50 nm;
• and
• subsequent to forming a conformal polymeric carbon-containing material on the substrate, etching a second portion of the feature that further extends through one or more layers of material formed on the substrate.