US 5,292,370 AGranted

Coupled microwave ECR and radio-frequency plasma source for plasma processing

AssigneeMartin Marietta Energy Systems, Inc.

InventorsChin-Chi Tsai, Halsey H. Haselton

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Abstract

In a dual plasma device, the first plasma is a microwave discharge having its own means of plasma initiation and control. The microwave discharge operates at electron cyclotron resonance (ECR), and generates a uniform plasma over a large area of about 1000 cm.sup.2 at low pressures below 0.1 mtorr. The ECR microwave plasma initiates the second plasma, a radio frequency (RF) plasma maintained between parallel plates. The ECR microwave plasma acts as a source of charged particles, supplying copious amounts of a desired charged excited species in uniform manner to the RF plasma. The parallel plate portion of the apparatus includes a magnetic filter with static magnetic field structure that aids the formation of ECR zones in the two plasma regions, and also assists in the RF plasma also operating at electron cyclotron resonance.

Claims8

Dependent claims

In a plasma processor incorporating an electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) microwave plasma source to initiate and feed the radio-frequency (RF) plasma of a RF plasma source in a common vacuum chamber, the improvement comprising:

said microwave plasma source including static magnetic field producing means located at the walls of said microwave source for producing an ECR zone over a maximum extent of inner wall area, said microwave source operating at ECR and producing a uniform ECR microwave plasma over at least a 1000 cm.sup.2 area at a pressure below 0.1 mtorr;
said RF plasma source including static magnetic field means for producing ECR zones within said RF plasma source;
and
a magnetic filter between said plasma sources, said filter including static magnetic field means and electrically biased plates for affecting said ECR microwave plasma and said RF plasma;
said static magnetic field means of said filter also producing ECR zones within said ECR microwave plasma source and said RF plasma source.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.