Instrumentation for Process Monitoring of Plasma Etching

等离子体刻蚀是电子材料图像化和超大规模集成电路制造中最重要的方法之一。对等离子蚀刻等工艺的理解和进一步发展至关重要的是诊断工具的可用性，这些工具允许研究和最终监测或控制该工艺。该项目将研究基于铅盐二极管激光吸收光谱的仪器的发展，以监测蚀刻过程中重要的气相物质。第一阶段计划的主要目标是研究使用二极管激光器的灵敏新测量技术，并演示这些技术在等离子体蚀刻反应器中的监测应用。特别是，高频光学外差技术将被研究，应该允许在光学系统的设计显著简化。该技术将通过在直流放电中测量三氯化硼及其重要分解产物来证明。第一阶段研究的结果将为第二阶段开发用于在线监测等离子蚀刻、等离子沉积、化学气相沉积或其他化学过程的紧凑型仪器提供所需的设计信息。

Plasma etching is one of the most important methods used for patterning of electronic materials and for fabrication of VLSI circuts. Critical to the understanding and further development of processes such as plasma etching is the availability of diagnostic tools that permit study and eventual monitoring or control of the process. This program will study the development of such instrumentation based on lead-salt diode laser absorption spectroscopy to monitor important gas phase species in the etching process. The major objective of the Phase I program is the investigation of sensitive new measurement techniques using diode lasers and the demonstration of these techniques to monitoring applications in plasma etching reactors. In particular, high frequency optical heterodyne techniques will be studied that should permit a significant simplification in the optical design of the system. The technique will be demonstrated by measurement of boron trichloride and its important decompositon products in a dc discharge. Results of the Phase I study will provide the required design information for the Phase II development of a compact instrument for on-line monitoring of plasma etching, plasma deposition, chemical vapor deposition, or other chemical process.