Plasma ignition and complete faraday shielding of capacitive coupling for an inductively-coupled plasma
AssigneeApplied Materials, Inc.
InventorsThai Cheng Chua, James P. Cruse, Cory Czarnik
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method and apparatus for igniting a gas mixture into plasma using capacitive coupling techniques, shielding the plasma and other contents of the plasma reactor from the capacitively-coupled electric field, and maintaining the plasma using inductive coupling are provided. For some embodiments, the amount of capacitive coupling may be controlled after ignition of the plasma. Such techniques are employed in an effort to prevent damage to the surface of a substrate from excessive ion bombardment caused by the highly energized ions and electrons accelerated towards and perpendicular to the substrate surface by the electric field of capacitively-coupled plasma.
Claims10
A method for processing a substrate, comprising:
- locating the substrate within a substantially enclosed volume of a plasma reactor;
- performing an action to initiate ignition of a gas mixture within the enclosed volume into a plasma by supplying power to one or more radio frequency (RF) coils disposed adjacent to the enclosed volume;
- in response to detecting an event indicative of plasma ignition, connecting an electrode interposed between the RF coils and the enclosed volume to a ground source to prevent capacitive coupling of the power to the plasma;
- and
- processing the substrate while the electrode is cycled between being connected and disconnected from the ground source.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.