In Situ Monitoring of Silicon Plasma Etching Using a Quantum Cascade Laser Arrangement
✍ Scribed by G. D. Stancu; N. Lang; J. Röpcke; M. Reinicke; A. Steinbach; S. Wege
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2007
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 631 KB
- Volume
- 13
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0948-1907
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Abstract
In etch plasmas used for semiconductor processing, concentrations of the precursor gas NF~3~ and of the etch product SiF~4~ are measured online and in situ using a new diagnostic arrangement, the Q‐MACS Etch system, which is based on quantum cascade laser absorption spectroscopy (QCLAS). In addition, the etch rates of SiO~2~ layers and of the silicon wafer are monitored including plasma‐etching endpoint detection. For this purpose the Q‐MACS Etch system is working as an interferometer arrangement. The experiments are performed in an industrial, dual‐frequency, capacitively coupled, magnetically enhanced, reactive ion etcher (MERIE), which is a plasma reactor developed for dynamic random access memory (DRAM) technologies. In the spectral range 1028 ± 0.3 cm^–1^, the absorption cross‐sections of SiF~4~ and NF~3~ are determined to be σ = (7.7 ± 0.7) × 10^–18^ cm^2^ molecule^–1^ and σ = (8.7 ± 0.8) × 10^–20^ cm^2^ molecule^–1^, respectively.