The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 01, 2020
Filed:
Oct. 01, 2018
Lam Research Corporation, Fremont, CA (US);
Wenbing Yang, Fremont, CA (US);
Samantha Tan, Fremont, CA (US);
Tamal Mukherjee, Fremont, CA (US);
Keren Jacobs Kanarik, Los Altos, CA (US);
Yang Pan, Los Altos, CA (US);
Lam Research Corporation, Fremont, CA (US);
Abstract
Methods and apparatus for performing high energy atomic layer etching are provided herein. Methods include providing a substrate having a material to be etched, exposing a surface of the material to a modification gas to modify the surface and form a modified surface, and exposing the modified surface to an energetic particle to preferentially remove the modified surface relative to an underlying unmodified surface where the energetic particle has an ion energy sufficient to overcome an average surface binding energy of the underlying unmodified surface. The energy of the energetic particle used is very high; in some cases, the power applied to a bias used when exposing the modified surface to the energetic particle is at least 150 eV.