Thin film deposition process

Abstract

Provided is a thin film deposition process that allows high-precision control of the in-plane distribution of a thin film being deposited on a substrate. The process is a process of depositing a thin film on a substrate in a chamber by atomic layer deposition (ALD) which includes repeating a deposition cycle to deposit the thin film on the substrate. The deposition cycle includes the steps of: feeding a reactive gas and a carrier gas to the chamber and feeding a source gas at a reduced concentration to the chamber to allow the source gas to adsorb on the substrate; feeding the reactive gas and the source gas to the chamber to allow the source gas to adsorb on the substrate; feeding the reactive gas and the carrier gas to the chamber to purge, from the chamber, the source gas not adsorbing on the substrate; applying RF power to the chamber to turn the reactive gas into a plasma so that the source gas activated by the plasma is allowed to come into contact with a surface of the substrate; and feeding the reactive gas and the carrier gas to the chamber to purge, from the chamber, the source gas remaining unreacted and the reactive gas.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.