Applied Electron Corporation

Other

Zeng-qi Yu

George J Collins

John R McNeil

Jack D Meyer

Tien-yu Sheng

A disc-shaped plasma, generated by a ring-shaped cold cathode is used both as an in-situ large area (10-20 cm in diameter) VUV lamp and as a source of ground state and excited atoms. The atoms created in the disc-shaped plasma may be used for initiating sensitized atom-molecule reactions in the volume that dissociate the molecules as well as for providing external energy to heterogenous surface reactions. Multiple grid electrodes are used to extract ions or electrons from the plasma during the deposition process. The disc-shaped plasma is of narrow width which is optically thin for resonance photons emitted in a direction perpendicular to the disc to minimize undesired resonance trapping and associated line reversal. This VUV lamp operates without the need for optical windows; hence, ground state and excited atoms, created in the disc-shaped plasma, can diffuse from the disc-shaped plasma toward the substrate.

Wide area VUV lamp with grids and purging jets

A cold cathode for generating an abnormal glow discharge electron beam within a vacuum chamber is mounted to a wall of the vacuum chamber such that only the emitting front face of the cold cathode, itself electrically insulated from the vacuum chamber wall by a narrow gap therebetween, is located inside the vacuum chamber, while the remainder of the cold cathode is located outside the vacuum chamber.

Mounting of a cold cathode directly to a vacuum chamber wall

An open wide area vacuum ultraviolet lamp for use in microelectronics processing applications employes a ring-shaped cold cathode to produce a trapped electron beam discharge of generally disc-shaped cross section in a low pressure molecular gas environment and without the use of VUV windows.

In-situ wide area vacuum ultraviolet lamp

A gas ion laser employs a direct current electron beam to create a rare gas ion density and a cylindrical magnetron to sputter a partial pressure of metal vapor density and to also create a rare gas ion density. Thermal energy charge transfer selectively pumps the upper metal ion laser transitions on a continuous wave basis.

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Ft. Collins, CO, United States of America

Zeng-qi Yu