Power deposition control in inductively coupled plasma (ICP) reactors

Abstract

Embodiments of inductively coupled plasma (ICP) reactors are provided herein. In some embodiments, a dielectric window for an inductively coupled plasma reactor includes: a body including a first side, a second side opposite the first side, an edge, and a center, wherein the dielectric window has a dielectric coefficient that varies spatially. In some embodiments, an apparatus for processing a substrate includes: a process chamber having a processing volume disposed beneath a lid of the process chamber; and one or more inductive coils disposed above the lid to inductively couple RF energy intoand to form a plasma in the processing volume above a substrate support disposed within the processing volume; wherein the lid is a dielectric window comprising a first side and an opposing second side that faces the processing volume, and wherein the lid has a dielectric coefficient that spatially varies to provide a varied power coupling of RF energy from the one or more inductive coils to theprocessing volume.

Description

[0001] This application is a divisional application with an application date of August 28, 2014, an application number of 201480040981.0, and a title of "Power Deposition Control in an Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP) Reactor". technical field [0002] Embodiments of the invention generally relate to inductively coupled plasma processing reactors. Background technique [0003] A typical industrial inductively coupled plasma (ICP) source uses an arrangement of two flat or vertical coils to control the center-to-edge (eg, relative to the substrate being processed) plasma profile and to allow Uniformity tunability at the substrate level (eg, in etching applications). In a typical vertical dual-coil arrangement where the currents are flowing in the same direction (indicated as "in phase"), due to the constructive interference of the electric field between the coils at the substrate level ( Due to the nature of constructive interference), an M-shaped etch rate profile exists, wh...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

Since some applications suffer from the M-shaped effect (which further requires high ICP power due to high throughput requirements and / or limitations in the maximum power of the RF power supply), out-of-phase operation may require significantly higher power, which may Requires RF generators and matching equipment that are not commercially available and are prohibitively expensive

Also, under certain conditions, out-of-phase operation may suffer from capacitive coupling (E-mode) and / or inductive coupling (H-mode) instabilities, which narrow the operating window for such processes

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