ECR plasma apparatus

Details ECR plasma apparatus ECR plasma apparatus

2000-03-24

2001-10-23

Mills, Gregory (Department: 1763)

Coating apparatus

Gas or vapor deposition

With treating means

C156S345420, C118S7230MA

Reexamination Certificate

active

06305315

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION AND RELATED ART STATEMENT
The invention relates to an electron cyclotron resonance (hereinafter referred to as ECR) plasma apparatus, such as chemical vapor deposition (hereinafter referred to as CVD) apparatus, sputtering apparatus, etching apparatus and milling apparatus, using ECR.
Heretofore, an ECR plasma CVD apparatus, an ECR plasma sputtering apparatus or the like is structured such that a cavity is provided to a side surface of a vacuum chamber as an reaction chamber to use it as a cavity resonance chamber for generating ECR plasma, and plasma generated here is taken out into the vacuum chamber. For the cavity, a resonance with a TE
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mode has been often set in consideration of a stable discharge at a discharge starting point. At this time, the cavity has a diameter of about 200 mm and a length of about 200 mm, and in order to provide a magnetic field in an ECR condition inside the cavity, an electromagnetic coil having an outer diameter of about 500 mm is disposed around the cavity.
However, the conventional ECR plasma apparatus has problems in miniaturizing its shape and reducing its weight. More specifically, as described above, to provide the magnetic field for the ECR condition inside the cavity, the electromagnetic coil having the outer diameter of about 500 mm is required, which results in a large size and a heavy weight of over 200 kg.
Therefore, the present invention has been made to solve the above problems, and an object of the invention is to provide an ECR plasma apparatus, wherein the size and weight of the electromagnetic coil can be reduced, so that the apparatus can be miniaturized and lightened in weight as a whole.
Further objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following description of the invention.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
To attain the above objects, an ECR plasma apparatus according to the present invention includes a vacuum chamber, a cavity which is disposed to a side surface of the vacuum chamber and into which microwave is introduced through a wave guide, an electromagnetic coil provided around the cavity, and a case member disposed on a vacuum chamber side of the cavity and made of a conductive material of the same electric potential as that of the cavity.
The cavity is provided with the case member made of the conductive material having the same electric potential as that of the cavity on the side of the vacuum chamber. The cavity and the conductive material case member put together operate as an equivalent cavity resonance chamber. Thus, even if the cavity itself is made small, the same effect as in a cavity of a large size can be equivalently obtained. When the cavity is made small, the electromagnetic coil for providing the magnetic field in the ECR condition in the cavity can be made small to thereby reduce its weight. As the result, the ECR plasma apparatus as a whole can be miniaturized and lightened in weight.


REFERENCES:
patent: 4401054 (1983-08-01), Matsuo et al.
patent: 4970435 (1990-11-01), Tanaka et al.
patent: 5869149 (1999-02-01), Denison et al.
patent: 6077574 (2000-06-01), Usami
patent: 6136387 (2000-10-01), Koizumi

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