Adaptive GCIB for smoothing surfaces
AssigneeEpion Corporation
InventorDavid B. Fenner
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method of processing the surface of a workpiece using an adaptive gas cluster ion beam is disclosed. The invention provides a method of reducing the surface roughness and/or improving the surface smoothing of a workpiece by etching at various etch rates. The workpiece is initially processed with a gas cluster ion beam having an initial etch rate and then the beam is adjusted so that the workpiece is processed with one or more lower etch rates. The advantages are minimum required processing time, minimum remaining roughness of the final surface, and minimum material removal in order to attain a desired level of smoothness.
Claims29
A method of processing a surface of a workpiece using an adaptive gas cluster ion beam wherein the processing of the surface comprises cleaning, smoothing, or etching the surface comprising:
- providing a pressurized gaseous source material;
- flowing the pressurized gaseous source material through a nozzle into a reduced-pressure chamber to form a jet of gas clusters:
- ionizing the jet of gas clusters to form a gas cluster ion beam;
- exposing the surface of the workpiece to the gas cluster ion beam wherein the gas cluster ion beam has an initial processing rate of cleaning, smoothing or etching;
- monitoring a workpiece surface condition;
- computing process parameters;
- adapting the gas cluster ion beam during processing, based on said computing, so that the gas cluster ion beam then has at least one other processing rate, the at least one other processing rate being lower than the initial processing rate.
A method of processing a surface of a workpiece using an adaptive gas cluster ion beam comprising:
- forming a gas cluster ion beam;
- exposing the surface of the workpiece to the gas cluster ion beam wherein the gas cluster ion beam has an initial processing rate;
- adapting the gas cluster ion beam during processing wherein the gas cluster ion beam has at least one other processing rate, the at least one other processing rate being lower than the initial processing rate;
- wherein the gas cluster ion beam is formed with an initial acceleration voltage wherein the initial acceleration voltage ranges from about half a predetermined etching threshold value to about the predetermined etching threshold value and the exposing step is for a sufficient length of time to remove a substantial amount of contamination from the surface.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.