Laser ablation of electrostatic chucks

Abstract

A method to refurbish electrostatic chucks includes identifying one or more layers on a minimal contact area (MCA) pad affixed to an electrostatic chuck, configuring a laser ablation system to remove the identified layers, ablating the identified layers with a controlled laser beam from the laser ablation system, identifying one or more deposited metals on the electrostatic chuck, and ablating the identified deposited metals with the laser beam. In another aspect, the MCA pad may include a diamond like carbon layer and a Ti-TiN layer. The laser ablation process removes the layers and deposited metals on an electrostatic chuck in a manner that is performed faster, with a lower cost, and without the use of a multistep chemical process compared to conventional chemical stripping methods.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.