APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR TREATING OBJECTS WITH RADICALS GENERATED FROM PLASMA

摘要

The present invention provides an apparatus and method for downstream reactive radical generation from non-­condensable gas plasma and its downstream interaction with a variety of chemical precursors for thin film processing. Plasma may be generated by either RF or microwave power source or a high energy UV light source may be suitably employed to ionize the non-condensable gas. Highly energetic ions and electrons are filtered from the plasma of a non-condensable gas through an in-line ion filter. The resultant radical rich flow is mixed with downstream flow of a reactive gas that may be condensable. The upstream non-condensable gas flow, plasma power and the downstream reactive gas flow all can be pulsed synchronously or all maintained constant or some of these factors may be varied in magnitude with respect to time. Thus, a variety of combinations of operational parameters of the radical generator can be practiced. Thus, either a constant or time variant flow of highly reactive radicals with well defined chemical configuration and predictable reaction pathways is obtained that can be injected on the substrate surface mounted underneath to achieve low temperature, high rate and iondamage free processing.