Localized elecron cyclotron resonance plasma source for hyperthermal neutral beam

Summary form only given. Hyperthermal neutral beams (HNB) have a great potential for semiconductor processes, especially, for etchings and thin film depositions for semiconductor and display fabrications as well as depositions for various thin film applications. Thermal and plasma-induced damages are serious problems for manufacturing deep submicron semiconductor devices and are also expected to be problems for future nanoscale devices. These problems can be overcome by damage-free and low-temperature processes with hyperthermal neutral beams. The HNB process is especially applicable to various thin film growings: oxidation and nitridation for gate insulators of DRAMs and flash memories, transparent conductive oxide films on organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) or flexible displays, Si thin films for solar cells and thin film transistors (TFT), and crystal thin film growing for optoelectronic devices such as light emitting diodes (LEDs). The HNB can be produced by neutralization of ion beams extracted from an ion sources. However, the flux of the ion beams at a hyperthermal energy range is much lower than required in industrial applications due to the space charge effect. So, in order to obtain a high flux particle beam at a hyperthermal energy range, the ion beams should be neutralized before extracted from a plasma source. The plasma required for a high flux HNB sources should be operated at a lower pressure than 1 mTorr in order to reduce the HNB loss due to collisions with the background gas. The plasmas should also be so thin that the HNB cannot be lost by reionization during passing through the plasmas. We have developed a localized ECR plasma source with a racetrack magnetic field configuration in order to produce a high flux HNB. The operating pressure is 0.3 mTorr and the plasma thickness is less than 25 mm. The plasma is mainly characterized by the line ratio method of the optical emission spectroscopy (OES).