Thirty-five centimeter diameter radio frequency ion-beam source

Abstract

A 35 cm diam inductively coupled rf ion source and its applications for material processing is described. This is the largest commercial rf ion-beam source presently available for ion-beam etching and deposition. It has been used to generate beams of different ions (Ne+, Ar+, Kr+, Xe+, O2+, Cl2+, CH4+,…) at 50–1000 eV of ion energy and corresponding beam currents of 0.15–1.5 A. A presentation of the ion source operation characteristics, along with performance results for various etching and deposition applications are given. Etch uniformities of less than 3% for etch diameters of up to 250 mm are obtained. Etch rates in excess of 100 nm/min for NiFe or silicon dioxide are achievable.

Smoothing of (111) oriented Cu films by post-deposition in situ 20–100eV Ar ion bombardment

“…In our experiments, we worked with a vacuum integrated cluster tool, which contained a multisource physical vapor deposition (PVD) tool capable of depositing thin metal films with a reproducibility Ͻ1% 1, and an ion beam (IB) module containing a 350 mm diam gridded RF-ICP ion source 7 and a tiltable stage that allowed us to vary the polar angle of incidence . The gridset employed for these experiments provides a collimated beam with typical dispersion angles below 5 degrees.…”

Patterning of wave guides in LiNbO3 using ion beam etching and reactive ion beam etching

“…Figure 1 is a schematic drawing of the system. Further details of the Veeco source have been described elsewhere 6 and will not be repeated here. The sample substrate is located outside of the plasma, allowing optimization of the etching process independent of the plasma generation process.…”

Investigation of a rf inductively coupled plasma ion source capable of highly uniform and collimated ion-beam generation

“…3,4 The radio frequency inductively coupled plasma ͑ICP͒ generator is one type of apparatus that has been found to have many advantages for ion beam etching and deposition applications. [5][6][7] In conventional ICP generator designs operated at the low argon pressures ͑ϳ0.3-0.5 mTorr͒ typical for IBE, the ICP electron mean free path and energy relaxation length are comparable or greater than the generator characteristic dimensions, radius R and length L. As a result, the maximum ionization rate is on-axis. 8 In the standard ICP generator configuration having aspect ratio L / R Ͼ 1, which is advantageous for rf coil transmission line effect suppression of plasma inhomogenieties, [9][10][11] the plasma density profile is diffusion dominated.…”