Analysis of chlorine-containing plasmas applied in III/V semiconductor processing

Abstract

Nonselective and smooth etching of GaN/AlGaN heterostructures by Cl 2 / Ar / BCl 3 inductively coupled plasmas J. Vac. Sci. Technol. A 22, 407 (2004); 10.1116/1.1641054Real-time control of ion density and ion energy in chlorine inductively coupled plasma etch processing Capacitively coupled discharges of strongly reactive atmospheres containing mixtures of boron trichloride and chlorine are investigated with optical emission spectroscopy and self-excited electron resonance spectroscopy. This analyzes the whole area spanned by these gases and their impact on important plasma parameters like plasma density, electron temperature, and electron collision rate with neutrals. Using these data, roughly calculated cross sections for these gases are obtained in the low-energy region. Molecular chlorine ions, Cl 2 ϩ , are evidently present to a preponderant amount as a main agent, which are accompanied by chlorine radicals, Cl͑I͒, in mixtures with chlorine. Absolutely no chlorine ions could be found in the plasma which referred to the effective cooling of the Cl-containing species rather than the nonexistence of these species.

Optical Diagnostics for Thin Film Processing

“…In the H-mode of Cl 2 ICPs, dissociation to Cl atoms is nearly complete, whereas in the E-mode the fractional density of Cl is very small (18,(26)(27)(28). Adding BCl 3 to Cl 2 increases the Cl 2 percent dissociation, likely by passivation of the chamber walls by BCl x adsorbed on the chamber walls (27), and without actinometric analysis the Cl density is significantly underestimated (29). Use of Cl 2 /Ar mixtures in etching gives independent control of the rate of chlorination (determined by the Cl flux) and the rate of sputtering (determined by the Cl + and Ar + fluxes).…”

High-density plasma-induced etch damage of wafer-bonded AlGaInP/mirror/Si light-emitting diodes

“…The results can be interpreted by the in situ ICP plasma characteristics measured by the Langmuir probe, as shown in Fig. 13 That is, higher working pressures favor higher ion bombardment energy, which will enhance the etch rate greatly. As the ICP power was increased, an evident increase of ion current density and a slight decrease in dc bias ͑ion energy͒ were observed.…”

Correlation of Growth and Surface Properties of Poly(\(p\)-xylylenes) to Reaction Conditions

“…Several instruments for plasma diagnostics are connected to the reactor via KF 40 flanges: an energy-dispersive mass spectrometer for residual gas analysis and reaction control (Hiden HAL EPQ 300, Kochel am See, Germany), a Langmuir probe (Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany) and an optical emission spectrometer (OMA III, Princeton Applied Research, Oak Ridge, TN). They are described in detail elsewhere [32,33]. : Figure 2.…”

“…The substrates to be coated are glass carriers for microscopy and three-dimensional medical tools, mostly capillaries and pipes, but also stents. Since, for diagnostic purposes, the addition of inert gas is required, we had to measure the deposition rate as a function of the fluxes of monomeric species and inert gas (argon) [30,32]. The deposited layers are analyzed by inspection with SEM, AFM with a micro-cantilever of OMCL-RC Olympus as a scanning tip and impedance analysis (low frequency and high frequency), applying electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (4192 A Impedance Analyzer of Hewlett-Packard), and by determination of the contact angle with two different liquids (H 2 O as a prototype for a polar solvent and CH 2 I 2 as a prototype for a highly polarizable, but almost nonpolar solvent).…”