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:
Apr. 29, 2014
Filed:
Oct. 17, 2012
Applied Materials, Inc., Santa Clara, USA;
Thorsten Lill, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Klaus Schuegraf, San Jose, CA (US);
Dmitry Lubomirsky, Cupertino, CA (US);
Applied Materials, Inc., Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
Ultrathin material layers are plasma etched with an etch system configured for cryogenic cooling of a substrate to reduce the diffusion coefficients of foreign and intrinsic stop layer atoms (e.g., of the bombarded crystal lattice), and further configured for plasma pulsing to reduce the energy of the impinging ions with cryogenic wafer temperatures. Substrate temperatures of −50° C. or more are employed to reduce the susceptibility of a stop layer material to damage associated with ion impact. Ion energy is reduced to below the threshold where stop layer lattice atoms are displaced or ions are implanted into the bulk lattice. In embodiments, a plasma of an etchant gas having ion energies less than 10 eV are achieved through plasma pulsing, which when directed at the low temperature substrate may controllably etch ultra-thin material layers.