Coating apparatus – Gas or vapor deposition – Crucible or evaporator structure
Reexamination Certificate
1999-10-28
2002-01-15
Lund, Jeffrie R. (Department: 1763)
Coating apparatus
Gas or vapor deposition
Crucible or evaporator structure
C118S715000, C118S050000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06338759
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a metal organic chemical vapor deposition (hereinafter referred to as “MOCVD”) apparatus and to a deposition method. More particularly, the present invention relates to an MOCVD apparatus useful to deposit high dielectric thin film on a semiconductor substrate and to a deposition method using the same.
2. Description of the Prior Art
For the next generation DRAMs which are at least 1 Giga in memory size, conventional thin films not supply enough capacitance. As semiconductor devices scale down, three-dimensional capacitor structures, such as fin and cylinder type structures, are more difficult to construct because the scaling-down is accomplished at the sacrifice of cell area reduction.
In addition, reduction in the thickness of the thin film gives rise to an increase in leakage current at a source/drain region, an impurity region of a semiconductor device, and causes a soft error, a phenomenon wherein the information stored in a capacitor is changed or lost by &agr;-particles. So, a reliable capacitor is difficult to obtain. Further, if a capacitor is formed into a complex three-dimensional structure, subsequent processes are hard to perform.
Recently, active research has been directed to a high dielectric thin film deposition apparatus in order to apply high dielectric materials, such as BST (BaSrTiO
3
) and SrTiO
3
, for the thin film of a capacitor.
To construct high dielectric thin films, many methods are used, including a sputtering method, a sol-gel method, a laser ablation method, an MOCVD method, etc. Of them the MOCVD method guarantees a uniform thin film as well as allows the composition of the thin film to be easily controlled. Accordingly, the high dielectric thin film deposition apparatuses which utilize the MOCVD method are now being actively researched.
In order to better understand the background of the invention, a description will be given of a conventional MOCVD apparatus and its operation procedure, in conjugation with FIG.
1
.
As shown in
FIG. 1
, a typical MOCVD apparatus comprises a reactant source ampule
10
, a liquid micro pump
20
for delivering the reactants, a vaporizer
30
, a reactor
70
, a trap
60
and a vacuum pump. The reactants contained in the source ampule
10
are dissolved in a solvent. The liquid micro-pump
20
is used to transfer the resulting liquid to the vaporizer
30
in which the liquid is heated or vaporized with the aid of another energy source. Using a carrier gas, such as argon or nitrogen, the vapor is transferred the rector
70
and the vapor is deposited on a semiconductor substrate loaded in the reactor
70
, to form a thin film. Here, pressure rising gas which is needed for the transfer of the reactants, is also argon or nitrogen.
During the transfer of the reactants dissolved in the solvent to the reactor, however, since the vaporization temperature of the solvent is much lower than that of the reactants, the solvent, although no heat is applied to the vaporizer, is separated faster than the reactants, recondensing the reactants. Accordingly, the recondensed reactants block the thin film transfer line between the vaporizer and the reactor and thus, are not constantly fed to the reactor. As a consequence, a deposited thin film is formed poor in properties.
Even when heat is applied to the vaporizer in order to constantly maintain the vapor pressure of the reactants necessary for the thin film deposition, the solvent is faster vaporized than the reactants, resulting in the decomposition of the reactants. Likely, the reactants cannot be constantly fed to the reactor since the decomposed reactants block the thin film transfer line between the vaporizer and the reactor. So, it is difficult to form a thin film reliable and excellent in electrical properties.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to overcome the above problems encountered in the prior arts and to provide an MOCVD apparatus in which the reactants are prevented from being recondensed and decomposed in the vaporizer.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method for forming a high dielectric thin film by using the apparatus.
In accordance with an aspect of the present invention, there is provided an MOCVD apparatus for forming a high dielectric thin film, comprising a source ampule containing reactants in a solvent, a liquid micro-pump for delivering the dissolved reactants, a vaporizer for vaporizing the dissolved reactants delivered by the micro-pump and a reactor for depositing the vaporized reactants on a semiconductor substrate loaded therein, said vaporized reactant being fed to said reactor by a carrier gas, wherein said vaporizer is additionally provided with a solvent supply means for feeding an additional amount of the solvent to said vaporizer, in order to prevent the reactants from being recondensed in the vaporizer and the recondensed reactants, if may be present, from blocking a transfer line between the vaporizer and the reactor.
In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, there is provided an MOCVD method for forming a high dielectric thin film on a semiconductor substrate, comprising the steps of: feeding a reactant dissolved in a solvent to a vaporizer which is additionally provided with the solvent via a separate supply means; vaporizing the reactant in the vaporizer; and transferring the vaporized reactant to a reactor by carrier gas, in which the reactant is deposited on the semiconductor substrate.
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patent: 5620524 (1997-04-01), Fan et al.
patent: 5711816 (1998-01-01), Kirlin et al.
patent: 5820678 (1998-10-01), Hubert et al.
patent: 6008143 (1999-12-01), Yu et al.
patent: 6074487 (2000-06-01), Yoshioka et al.
patent: 6216708 (2001-04-01), Agarwal
patent: 6268171 (2001-07-01), Agarwal
Baek Yong Ku
Kim Jong Choul
Park Young Jin
Yu Yong Sik
Hyundai Electronics Industries Co,. Ltd.
Lund Jeffrie R.
Meyer Jerald L.
Nath Gary M.
Nath & Associates PLLC
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