| 摘要 |
PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a thermal treatment method arranged so that the abnormal crystal growth in a film during a heat treatment can be prevented.SOLUTION: In a thermal treatment method, a semiconductor wafer W with a high-k film formed on a surface thereof is loaded into a chamber 6 and then, the semiconductor wafer is held by a holding plate 7; an atmosphere in the chamber 6 is made a mixed gas arranged by mixing nitrogen with helium or argon, or a mixed gas arranged by mixing oxygen with nitrogen according to the thickness of the film of a high-k material; and in such atmosphere, flash light is casted to the semiconductor wafer W from a flash lamp FL of a flash irradiation unit 5, thereby performing a heat treatment of the high-k film. Using flash light of which the light emission time is extremely short and the intensity is strong, the surface temperature of a thin film can be instantaneously raised and then, rapidly lowered. Therefore, the abnormal crystal growth owing to sintering over a long time can be prevented from being caused in the film to impart crystallinity to the high-k film.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 1 |
