DIFFERENTIALLY PUMPED REACTIVE GAS INJECTOR

• Main Authors: Berry, III Ivan L, Reynolds Kenneth Reese, Lill Thorsten
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 15.02.2018
• Subjects: BASIC ELECTRIC ELEMENTS; CHEMICAL SURFACE TREATMENT; CHEMISTRY; COATING BY VACUUM EVAPORATION, BY SPUTTERING, BY ION IMPLANTATIONOR BY CHEMICAL VAPOUR DEPOSITION, IN GENERAL; COATING MATERIAL WITH METALLIC MATERIAL; COATING METALLIC MATERIAL; DIFFUSION TREATMENT OF METALLIC MATERIAL; ELECTRIC DISCHARGE TUBES OR DISCHARGE LAMPS; ELECTRICITY; INHIBITING CORROSION OF METALLIC MATERIAL OR INCRUSTATION INGENERAL; METALLURGY; MULTI-STEP PROCESSES FOR SURFACE TREATMENT OF METALLICMATERIAL INVOLVING AT LEAST ONE PROCESS PROVIDED FOR IN CLASSC23 AND AT LEAST ONEPROCESS COVERED BY SUBCLASS C21D OR C22F OR CLASS C25; NON-MECHANICAL REMOVAL OF METALLIC MATERIAL FROM SURFACE

One process used to remove material from a surface is ion etching. In certain cases, ion etching involves delivery of both ions and a reactive gas to a substrate. The disclosed embodiments permit local high pressure delivery of reactive gas to a substrate while maintaining a much lower pressure on portions of the substrate that are outside of the local high pressure delivery area. In many cases, the low pressure is achieved by providing an injection head that confines the high pressure reactant delivery to a small area and vacuums away excess reactants and byproducts as they leave this small area and before they enter the larger substrate processing region. The disclosed injection head may be used to increase throughput while minimizing deleterious collisions between ions and other species present in the substrate processing region. The disclosed injection head may also be used in other types of semiconductor wafer processing.