Abstract: A system and method for rapid atomic layer etching (ALET) including a pulsed plasma source, with a spiral coil electrode, a cooled Faraday shield, a counter electrode disposed at the top of the tube, a gas inlet and a reaction chamber including a substrate support and a boundary electrode. The method includes positioning an etchable substrate in a plasma etching chamber, forming a product layer on the surface of the substrate, removing a portion of the product layer by pulsing a plasma source, then repeating the steps of forming a product layer and removing a portion of the product layer to form an etched substrate.
Type:
Application
Filed:
December 13, 2010
Publication date:
June 16, 2011
Applicant:
UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON
Inventors:
Vincent M. DONNELLY, Demetre J. ECONOMOU
Abstract: A method is provided for creating a plurality of substantially uniform nano-scale features in a substantially parallel manner in which an array of micro-lenses is positioned on a surface of a substrate, where each micro-lens includes a hole such that the bottom of the hole corresponds to a portion of the surface of the substrate. A flux of charged particles, e.g., a beam of positive ions of a selected element, is applied to the micro-lens array. The flux of charged particles is focused at selected focal points on the substrate surface at the bottoms of the holes of the micro-lens array. The substrate is tilted at one or more selected angles to displace the locations of the focal points across the substrate surface. By depositing material or etching the surface of the substrate, several substantially uniform nanometer sized features may be rapidly created in each hole on the surface of the substrate in a substantially parallel manner.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
December 4, 2006
Date of Patent:
February 8, 2011
Assignee:
University of Houston
Inventors:
Vincent M Donnelly, Demetre J. Economou, Paul Ruchhoeft, Lin Xu, Sri Charan Vemula, Manish Kumar Jain
Abstract: A surface wave plasma (SWP) source couples pulsed microwave (MW) energy into a processing chamber through, for example, a radial line slot antenna, to result in a low mean electron energy (Te). To prevent impingement of the microwave energy onto the surface of a substrate when plasma density is low between pulses, an ICP source, such as a helical inductive source, a planar RF coil, or other inductively coupled source, is provided between the SWP source and the substrate to produce plasma that is opaque to microwave energy. The ICP source can also be pulsed in synchronism with the pulsing of the MW plasma in phase with the ramping up of the MW pulses. The ICP also adds an edge dense distribution of plasma to a generally chamber centric MW plasma to improve plasma uniformity.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
March 30, 2012
Date of Patent:
March 3, 2015
Assignee:
Tokyo Electron Limited
Inventors:
Jianping Zhao, Lee Chen, Vincent M. Donnelly, Demetre J. Economou, Merritt Funk, Radha Sundararajan
Abstract: A method is provided for creating a plurality of substantially uniform nano-scale features in a substantially parallel manner in which an array of micro-lenses is positioned on a surface of a substrate, where each micro-lens includes a hole such that the bottom of the hole corresponds to a portion of the surface of the substrate. A flux of charged particles, e.g., a beam of positive ions of a selected element, is applied to the micro-lens array. The flux of charged particles is focused at selected focal points on the substrate surface at the bottoms of the holes of the micro-lens array. The substrate is tilted at one or more selected angles to displace the locations of the focal points across the substrate surface. By depositing material or etching the surface of the substrate, several substantially uniform nanometer sized features may be rapidly created in each hole on the surface of the substrate in a substantially parallel manner.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
May 5, 2009
Date of Patent:
October 4, 2011
Assignee:
University of Houston
Inventors:
Vincent M. Donnelly, Demetre J. Economou, Paul Ruchhoeft, Lin Xu, Sri Charan Vemula, Manish Kumar Jain