Method of cleaning a charged beam apparatus
AssigneeKabushiki Kaisha Toshiba
InventorsItsuko Sakai, Nobuo Hayasaka, Haruo Okano
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method of cleaning a charged beam irradiating apparatus having a part exposed to a charged beam in a vacuum chamber to contaminate the part with organic contaminations, the method including the selective introduction of electrically neutral active species into the vacuum chamber, after it has been exhausted, to remove the contaminations from the part by exposure to the introduced neutral active species. The neutral active species are formed outside of the chamber in a plasma discharging gas with other species including electrons or positive ions. Only the electrically active neutral species are selected for introduction into the evacuated container.
Claims9
A method of cleaning a charged beam irradiating apparatus having a part exposed by a charged beam contained in a vacuum chamber, the part having organic contaminations, said method comprising the steps of:
- exhausting the vacuum chamber;
- forming plasma discharging gas outside the chamber, the plasma discharging gas including electrically neutral active species and other species including at least one of electrons and positive ions;
- selectively introducing the electrically neutral active species into the chamber;
- and
- removing the contaminations from the part by exposure to the introduced electrically neutral active species.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.