Japan Aviation Electronics Industry, Limited

Hitachi, Ltd.

Kyoto University

Tokyo Electron Limited

Iwatani Corporation

Toshio Seki

Jiro Matsuo

Akiko Suzuki

Akinobu Sato

Emmanuel Bourelle

Takaaki Aoki

Sadao Sekizawa

Hiroshi Kimura

Kazuya Dobashi

Kenji Furusawa

Shinji Sasaki

Misako Saito

Kunihiko Koike

Takehiko Senoo

Yu Yoshino

Kensuke Inai

Shigeru Ono

Yoosuke Nagano

Satoshi Ninomiya

Shuhei Azuma

A substrate cleaning method for removing particles adhered to a substrate includes: acquiring particle information including diameters of the particles adhered to the substrate; controlling, based on the acquired particle information, a factor related to sizes of gas clusters having aggregates of atoms or molecules of a cleaning gas; ejecting the cleaning gas, at a higher pressure than a processing atmosphere where the substrate is provided, to the processing atmosphere and generating the gas clusters by adiabatic expansion; and removing the particles by irradiating the gas clusters in a perpendicular direction to a surface of the substrate. As a result, even if recesses for a circuit pattern are formed on the surface of the substrate, the particles in the recesses can be removed at a high removal rate.

Substrate cleaning method, substrate cleaning device, and vacuum processing device

A method of smoothing a solid surface with a gas cluster ion beam includes irradiating the solid surface with the gas cluster ion beam. The irradiating includes, when scratches which can be likened to a line-and-space pattern structure with widths and heights on the order of a submicrometer to micrometer are present on the solid surface, a process of emitting the gas cluster ion beam so as to expose substances, which remain on side-walls of the scratches due to lateral transferal caused by collisions with gas clusters, to other gas clusters, and the gas cluster ion beam diverges non-concentrically and/or non-uniformly.

Method of smoothing solid surface with gas cluster ion beam and solid surface smoothing apparatus

In a method of irradiating a gas cluster ion beam on a solid surface and smoothing the solid surface, the angle formed between the solid surface and the gas cluster ion beam is chosen to be between 1&#xb0; and an angle less than 30&#xb0;. In case the solid surface is relatively rough, the processing efficiency is raised by first irradiating a beam at an irradiation angle &#x3b8; chosen to be something like 90&#xb0; as a first step, and subsequently at an irradiation angle &#x3b8; chosen to be 1&#xb0; to less than 30&#xb0; as a second step. Alternatively, the set of the aforementioned first step and second step is repeated several times.

Method for smoothing a solid surface

Surface roughness having intervals of several tens of nanometers to about a hundred micrometers in a solid surface is reduced by directing a gas cluster ion beam to the surface. An angle formed between the normal to the solid surface and the gas cluster ion beam is referred to as an irradiation angle, and an irradiation angle at which the distance of interaction between the solid and the cluster colliding with the solid dramatically increases is referred to as a critical angle. A solid surface smoothing method includes an irradiation step of directing the gas cluster ion beam onto the solid surface at an irradiation angle not smaller than the critical angle. The critical angle is 70&#xb0;.

A method for processing a sample using an electrically neutral reactive cluster is provided. The surface of a sample is processed by jetting out a mixed gas that is composed of a reactive gas and a gas with a boiling point lower than that of the reactive gas from a gas jetting part of a vacuum process room in which the sample is placed by a pressure in a range in which the mixed gas is not liquefied, in a predetermined direction, while adiabatically-expanding the mixed gas, thereby generating a reactive cluster and jetting the reactive cluster against the sample in the vacuum process room.

Cluster jet processing method, semiconductor element, microelectromechanical element, and optical component

A solid surface is processed while corner portions of a relief structure are protected from deformation. A method of processing a solid surface with a gas cluster ion beam includes a cluster protection layer formation step of forming, on the solid surface, a relief structure having protrusions with a cluster protection layer formed to cover an upper part thereof and recesses without the cluster protection layer; an irradiation step of emitting a gas cluster ion beam onto the solid surface having the relief structure formed in the cluster protection layer formation step; and a removal step of removing the cluster protection layer. A thickness T of the cluster protection layer satisfies where n is a dose of the gas cluster ion beam, and Y is an etching efficiency of the cluster protection layer, expressed as an etching volume per cluster (a and b are constants).

Method of processing solid surface with gas cluster ion beam

A method for flattening a sample surface by irradiating the sample surface with a gas cluster ion beam, generates clusters of source gas in a cluster generating chamber, ionizes the generated clusters in an ionization chamber, accelerates the ionized cluster beam in an electric field of an accelerating electrode, selects a cluster size using a magnetic field of a sorting mechanism, and irradiates the surface of a sample. An irradiation angle between the sample surface and the gas cluster ion beam is less than 30&#xb0; and an average cluster size of the gas cluster ion beam is 50 or above.

Method and apparatus for flattening solid surface

In a dry etching method in which clusters formed by agglomeration of atoms or molecules are ionized and accelerated as a cluster ion beam for irradiation of an object surface to etch away therefrom its constituent atoms, the clusters are mixed clustersformed by agglomeration of two or more kinds of atoms or molecules, and the mixed clusterscontain atomsof at least one of argon, neon, xenon and krypton, and a componentthat is deposited on the object surface to form a thin film by reaction therewith. With this method, it is possible to provide an extremely reduced sidewall surface roughness and high vertical machining accuracy.

Dry etching method and photonic crystal device fabricated by use of the same

In a cluster ion beam irradiation apparatus including an apparatus for measuring size and energy distribution of gas cluster ions by using the time of flight (TOF) mass spectrometry, a unit for applying a retarding voltage is disposed in a stage preceding a TOF measuring instrument including a drift tube and a current measuring instrument. By measuring the size and energy distribution of the gas cluster ions and adjusting ionization conditions, cluster ions having predetermined energy and size are supplied to a work surface. In addition, a product of a pressure in an ion transportation device and an ion transportation length is controlled so as to satisfy the relation P&#xd7;L&#x2266;30/N/EPa&#xb7;m, where N is the size of gas cluster ions used for irradiation, and E is kinetic energy (eV) of the gas cluster ions.

Gas cluster-ion irradiation apparatus

An apparatus for magnetically detecting a position of a movable magnetic body includes a three-terminal magnetic field-intensity sensing structure formed by a pair of magneto-resistors. The magnetic field-intensity sensing structure is disposed opposite to a magnetic body arranged for movement relative thereto in a magnetic field and generates a first electrical signal of sinusoidal waveform in response to a change in the intensity of the magnetic field due to the relative movement of the magnetic body. This first electrical signal appears from the apparatus as a second electrical signal of rectangular waveform or of sinusoidal waveform having an amplified amplitude. Components of the circuit for shaping the waveform of or amplifying the amplitude of the first electrical signal are integrally mounted together with the magneto-resistors on a substrate. Preferably, the shaping or amplifying circuit is in the form of a hybrid integrated circuit formed on the substrate.

Apparatus for magnetically detecting a position of a movable magnetic

A magnetic detector for detecting the angle, position speed of rotation of a rotating body or the rectinear position, distance or speed of a rectinearly moving body is used opposite to a magnetic recording medium. The magnetic detector includes a plurality of elongated stripe-shaped magnetoresistive elements juxtaposed on a non-magnetic substrate. Bridge output terminals are provided adjoining to first identical ends of the respective magnetoresistive elements in the longitudinal directions thereof while common terminals are disposed adjoining to second ends of the magnetoresistive elements. Either bridge output or common terminals extend round the outside of the magnetoresistive elements to positions adjacent to the common or bridge output terminals. Thus, the total width of the magnetoresistive elements pattern can be greatly reduced, thereby providing a magnetic detector of high performance in which the influence of fluctuations of gap or spacing between the magnetic detector and the magnetic recording medium used together therewith.

Growing community of inventors

Kyoto, Japan

Toshio Seki