By Eray S. Aydil
ESI Special Topics, April
2003
Citing URL - http://www.esi-topics.com/fbp/2003/april03-ErayAydil.html
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Eray S. Aydil answers a
few questions about this month's fast breaking paper in the field of
Materials Science.
From
•>>April 2003
Field: Materials Science
Article Title: "Effect of chamber wall conditions on Cl and Cl-2 concentrations in an inductively coupled plasma reactor"
Authors: Ullal, SJ;Godfrey, AR;Edelberg, E;Braly, L;Vahedi, V;Aydil, ES
Journal: J VAC SCI TECHNOL A
Volume: 20
Page: 43-52
Year: JAN-FEB 2002
* Univ Calif Santa Barbara, Dept Chem Engn, Santa Barbara, CA 93106 USA.
* Univ Calif Santa Barbara, Dept Chem Engn, Santa Barbara, CA 93106 USA.
* Lam Res Corp, Fremont, CA 94538 USA.
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 Why
do you think your paper is highly cited?
It describes a new method for studying an old practical
problem. It also describes how this method can be used to solve
a technologically important and timely problem.
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Pictured at left is Professor Eray Aydil, Senior Author & at right is Saurabh Ullal, the Lead Author
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Does
it describe a new discovery or a new methodology that's useful to
others?
It describes a new methodology and use of this methodology to
learn new things about an old problem. The new method should be
useful to almost everyone who is using plasmas for depositing
and etching thin films and where plasma-wall
interactions affect the process.
Could
you summarize the significance of your paper in layman's terms?
Integrated circuits that make up the computer chips are
produced layer by layer on top of a silicon wafer using a series
of steps that include deposition and etching of thin films.
Chemically reactive species produced in an electrically
energized gas (plasma) are used both in etching and deposition
of thin films. Computer chips are manufactured by repeated use
of such etching and deposition processes. Plasma processes are
carried out in vacuum chambers and the interaction of the
energized gas with the reactor walls strongly influence the
process through chemical reactions occurring on the wall
surface. This fact makes the reactor performance depend
sensitively on the wall conditions and the species present on
the surfaces exposed to the plasma. Managing these effects has
remained an art because the fundamental mechanism of how the
plasma and walls interact is a complex process that is not well
understood. In this paper, we describe a new technique for
studying the interactions between the chamber walls and the
plasma. Furthermore, we demonstrate the use of the technique for
understanding the plasma-wall interactions in one of the most
widely used etching processes, namely chlorine plasma etching of
silicon.
How
did you become involved in this research?
We have been collaborating with Lam Research Corporation, a
major plasma process equipment manufacturing company, on various
projects. In one of our meetings, they pointed out that one of
the major problems that limit plasma process development is the
lack of knowledge about the chemistry occurring on chamber
walls. We realized that a method we have been using for studying
surfaces of semiconductors can be adapted to study the surface
chemistry on plasma chamber walls. We put together a
collaborative proposal to do so and submitted it to the
University of California Discovery Grants program. The project
was funded allowing us to develop this method and produce the
results published in the paper.
Eray S. Aydil
Professor and Vice Chairman
Chemical Engineering Department
University of California Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA, USA
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ESI Special Topics, April
2003
Citing URL - http://www.esi-topics.com/fbp/2003/april03-ErayAydil.html
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