Method of cleaning a film deposition apparatus, method of dry etching a film deposition apparatus, and an article production method including a process based on the cleaning or dry etching method

Abstract

A method for performing a cleaning process uses a cleaning gas and high-frequency power upon a film deposition apparatus for depositing a film on a substrate placed in a reactor chamber which can be evacuated to a low pressure. Supplying of high-frequency power is temporarily stopped in the middle of the cleaning process, and the cleaning process is restarted by again supplying high-frequency power. This method is capable of effectively removing by-products from the inside of a reactor chamber and makes it possible to form a high-quality deposition film, in particular, a high-quality electrophotographic photosensitive drum.

Description

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention[0002] The present invention relates to a method of cleaning a film deposition apparatus or a vacuum processing apparatus, a method of dry etching such an apparatus, and an article production method including a process based on the cleaning or dry etching method. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method of cleaning a film deposition apparatus or a vacuum processing apparatus for forming a deposition film on a substrate to produce an electrophotographic photoreceptor or a semiconductor device such as a solar cell, a line sensor for inputting an image, an imaging device, or a TFT, a method of dry etching such an apparatus, and an article production method including a process based on either one of such methods.[0003] 2. Description of the Related Art[0004] Various deposition films have been proposed for use in an electrophotographic photoreceptor and a semiconductor device such as a solar cell, a line sensor for inputting an image, a...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

Such incorporation of an impurity can cause degradation of the quality of the film.

Polysilane deposited on the substrate can cause the film to have a defect.

As a result, the charging process has become critical, that is, charging is needed to be performed in a shorter time.

This produces a problem that when no voltage is applied to a certain portion of the surface of the photoreceptor, that portion can have a large influence upon the voltage in neighboring portions, and thus an image defect is produced in that portion.

However, in recent more sophisticated copying apparatuses, it is needed to make a high-quality copy of a document including halftone information such as a picture, and an image defect which is not a significant problem in a line copy can result in a significant problem.

In particular, in a certain type of electrophotographic copying machine, an image defect is visually prominent, and thus the electrophotographic photosensitive drum needs to includes a still smaller number of defects.

However, the above-described conventional cleaning techniques for removing the undesired deposition film or polysilane remaining in the reactor chamber after forming the desired deposition film have the following problems to be solved to meet the requirements in terms of the characteristics of the articles such as a photoreceptor (photosensitive drum with a very large size).

That is, in the conventional techniques in which polysilane is removed by reacting polysilane with ClF.sub.3 gas, the cleaning process needs a long time to remove polysilane to a sufficient degree, and thus it is needed to supply a large amount of ClF.sub.3 and a large amount of electric power.

Furthermore, the vacuum pumping means, in particular, the rotary pump, needs to continuously suck ClF.sub.3 gas for a long time, and...

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