Fluent material handling – with receiver or receiver coacting mea – Evacuation apparatus
Reexamination Certificate
2001-04-26
2002-09-03
Huson, Gregory L. (Department: 3751)
Fluent material handling, with receiver or receiver coacting mea
Evacuation apparatus
C141S008000, C141S098000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06443191
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to vacuum processing methods and, more particularly, to vacuum processing methods of carrying out some processing of an article in a reaction vessel (or container) kept in a pressure-reduced state. More specifically, the invention concerns methods of subjecting an article in a reaction vessel kept in a pressure-reduced state to such processing as deposited film formation, etching, and so on, which is used in steps of producing semiconductor devices, photosensitive members for electrophotography, line sensors for image inputting, image pickup devices, photovoltaic devices, and so on. Further, the invention relates to methods of producing the semiconductor devices, photosensitive members for electrophotography, line sensors for image inputting, image pickup devices, photovoltaic devices, etc. by making use of the aforementioned vacuum processing method in steps thereof.
2. Related Background Art
Conventionally, a number of methods are known as vacuum processing methods used in the steps of producing the semiconductor devices, photosensitive members for electrophotography, line sensors for image inputting, image pickup devices, photovoltaic devices, other various electronic devices, optical elements, and so on; e.g., vacuum evaporation, sputtering, ion plating, thermal CVD, photo CVD, plasma CVD, plasma etching, and so on. In addition, systems for carrying out the methods are also put into practical use.
For example, the plasma CVD methods, i.e., methods of decomposing a source gas by a dc or high frequency or microwave glow discharge to form a thin deposited film on a substrate, are practically used as favorable deposition forming means for production of various electron devices. For example, they are utilized in formation of a deposited film of hydrogenated amorphous silicon (hereinafter referred to as “a-Si:H”) for electrophotography, or the like, and various systems for them have been also proposed heretofore.
It is possible to perform desired vacuum processing or to form a deposited film with desired characteristics by use of the systems proposed heretofore. For a vacuum processing method including the steps of preparing a vacuum processing system constructed of a reaction vessel and an exhauster separable from each other, connecting the reaction vessel to the exhauster for every lot, and thereafter carrying out vacuum processing, there are also proposals of apparatus having both high system operation efficiency and flexibility in production. Utilizing this advantage, improvement has been vigorously made recently, particularly, in vacuum processing methods suitable for multi-product production.
However, the market demand level has been becoming higher day after day, not only for the improvement in productivity, but also for the performance of products made by such vacuum processing methods. In order to meet this demand, therefore, there is a continuing need for development of a vacuum processing method that permits production of products with higher quality and that has a high productivity.
For example, in the case of the electro-photographic photosensitive members produced by plasma CVD, since digital, electrophotographic systems and color electrophotographic systems under spectacular spread in recent years are frequently operated to make copies of photographs, pictures, design graphics, etc. and output images, as well as letter documents, the demand level is very high for the quality of images formed thereby. It is thus of urgent necessity to provide electrophotographic apparatus adaptable for these requirements for high image quality. Technical studies have been done toward improvement in the quality of copied images from various aspects including investigation of the image forming process itself, and among others, the improvement in the characteristics of the photosensitive members for electrophotography is an inevitable subject. For accomplishing this subject, there are strong demands for achievement of a method of forming a photosensitive member for electrophotography capable of achieving improvement in vacuum processing characteristics and also capable of maintaining a high non-defective unit percentage (simply referred to as “non-defective percentage”), based on stable processing characteristics.
Under such circumstances, it is the present status that the conventional vacuum processing methods described above are still susceptible to improvement. In the vacuum processing method using the vacuum processing system in the structure wherein the reaction vessel and exhauster are separable from each other, as described above, the flexibility of production is improved. In this method, since the reaction vessel is moved with a substrate to be processed being placed inside prior to vacuum processing, there remains the subject of how dust is effectively prevented from attaching onto the substrate during the movement. One of countermeasures against it is a method of, prior to placement of the substrate in the reaction vessel, connecting the reaction vessel to the exhauster and then placing the substrate in the reaction vessel in that state. For adopting this substrate placement method, however, it becomes necessary to employ a new means for carrying the substrate into the reaction vessel while preventing the attachment of dust. Further, the vacuum processing cannot be started during the period between the placement of the substrate and completion of a pressure-reducing step of evacuating the interior of the reaction vessel and the time necessary for this evacuation is not so short, which thus leads to time loss in production tact.
In this vacuum processing method there readily occur variability in the vacuum processing characteristics among lots and thus there remains the subject of how the variability among lots are to be suppressed.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention has been accomplished to solve the above subjects and an object of the invention is to provide a vacuum processing method that permits execution of stable vacuum processing and that permits deposited films to be formed without variability in quality.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a vacuum processing method of moving a vacuum processing vessel having an article placed therein, connecting the vacuum processing vessel to a pressure-reduced space different therefrom, and thereafter carrying out at least one vacuum processing step, which comprises novel means that enables attainment of improvement in non-defective percentage of vacuum-processed articles without degrading the flexibility of production while preventing the attachment of dust onto the articles and that also enables attainment of suppression of the variability of the vacuum processing characteristics among lots.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a vacuum processing method capable of preventing the attachment of dust onto an article in a step of moving a vacuum processing vessel having the article placed therein and connecting the vacuum processing vessel to a pressure-reduced space different therefrom.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a vacuum processing method that excludes factors to cause the variability in the vacuum processing characteristics among lots and has a step configuration also excellent in the flexibility of production.
According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a vacuum processing method which comprises placing an article in a vacuum processing vessel and subjecting the article to at least one vacuum processing step therein with the vacuum processing vessel communicating with a pressure-reduced space different therefrom under reduced pressure,
wherein the vacuum processing vessel has at least a first openable/closable opening,
wherein the pressure-reduced space different from the vacuum processing vessel has at least a second opening,
wherein the communication between the vacuum processing vessel and the pressure-reduced space different therefrom is e
Abe Yukihiro
Akiyama Kazuyoshi
Aoike Tatsuyuki
Hosoi Kazuto
Murayama Hitoshi
Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
deVore Peter
Fitzpatrick ,Cella, Harper & Scinto
Huson Gregory L.
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