Sublimation bed employing carrier gas guidance structures
OwnerEric Shero, Michael Givens +1inventors
InventorsEric Shero, Michael Givens, Ryan Schmidt
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Abstract
Preferred embodiments of the present invention provides a sublimation system employing guidance structures including certain preferred embodiments having a high surface area support medium onto which a solid source material for vapor reactant is coated. Preferably, a guidance structure is configured to facilitate the repeated saturation of the carrier gas with the solid source for a vapor reactant. Methods of saturating a carrier gas using guidance structures are also provided.
Claims30
A method of employing a vapor reactant for substrate processing comprising:
- introducing a carrier gas into a vessel through an inlet port;
- guiding the carrier gas to contact sufficient vapor reactant from a solid source material in order to repeatedly saturate the carrier gas with the vapor reactant, the saturation of the carrier gas continuing for greater than 100,000 pulses of carrier gas, each pulse lasting for greater than about 0.1 seconds;
- and
- pulsing the carrier gas out of the vessel through an outlet port, wherein time between successive pulses is no more than about 30 seconds.
A method for processing a substrate comprising:
- producing a pulse of a carrier gas substantially saturated with a precursor vapor by contacting the carrier gas with a solid precursor source;
- injecting the pulse of the carrier gas substantially saturated with precursor vapor into a reaction chamber;
- purging the pulse from the chamber with an inert gas;
- and
- depositing the precursor onto the substrate so that the substrate is substantially saturated with the precursor,
- wherein injecting, purging, and depositing comprise a cycle which is repeated for at least 5 cycles with no greater than 30 seconds between the successive injecting of the pulses of the carrier gas substantially saturated with the precursor vapor.
A method for performing an atomic layer deposition (ALD) process to deposit a layer on a substrate surface comprising:
- contacting a carrier gas with a precursor vapor from a solid precursor source in a sublimation vessel so that the carrier gas is substantially saturated with the precursor vapor;
- channeling the substantially saturated carrier gas from the vessel and through a conduit to a substrate processing chamber;
- pulsing the substantially saturated carrier gas into the substrate processing chamber;
- stopping the flow of substantially saturated carrier gas from the vessel;
- and
- purging the substantially saturated carrier gas from the chamber with a substantially inert gas,
- wherein pulsing, stopping, and purging comprise a cycle, the cycle being repeated at least twice during the deposition of the layer.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.