Substrate cleaning method and substrate cleaning apparatus
AssigneeTokyo Electron Limited
InventorsKazuya Dobashi, Kensuke Inai
Life of this patent
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Abstract
In order to remove the particles attached to the wafer W, the distance between a front end of a nozzle unit 4 and the wafer W is set to be in a range of from about 10 mm to about 100 mm, a pressure within a cleaning chamber 31 is set to be an adequate level, and then, a gas cluster is irradiated to a surface of the wafer W. Therefore, the particles are rapidly removed with high efficiency. Further, since the gas cluster is vertically irradiated to the surface of the wafer W from the nozzle unit 4, damage of a recess pattern is suppressed. Furthermore, by supplying a mixed gas containing a carbon dioxide gas and a helium gas to the nozzle unit 4 and generating the gas cluster, the particles are removed with high efficiency.
Claims19
A substrate cleaning method of removing particles attached to a substrate, the substrate cleaning method comprising:
- providing the substrate to face a nozzle unit;
- generating a gas cluster as an aggregate of atoms or molecules of a cleaning gas through adiabatic expansion by discharging the cleaning gas to a processing gas atmosphere as a vacuum atmosphere through the nozzle unit from a region having a higher pressure than the processing gas atmosphere in which the substrate is provided;
- and
- removing the particles by vertically irradiating the gas cluster to a surface of the substrate;
- wherein, in the irradiating of the gas cluster, a distance between a front end of the nozzle unit and the substrate is in a range of from about 10 mm to about 100 mm.
A substrate cleaning apparatus of removing particles attached to a substrate, the substrate cleaning apparatus comprising:
- a cleaning chamber configured to accommodating a substrate therein and perform a cleaning process on the substrate in a vacuum atmosphere;
- and
- a nozzle unit configured to discharge a cleaning gas toward the substrate within the cleaning chamber from a region having a higher pressure than an atmosphere in which the substrate is accommodated and configured to generate a gas cluster as an aggregate of atoms or molecules of the cleaning gas through adiabatic expansion,
- wherein a distance between a front end of the nozzle unit and the substrate is in a range of from about 10 mm to about 100 mm, and the nozzle unit is provided to vertically irradiate the gas cluster to a surface of the substrate.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.