A. Strass et al., ETCHING CHARACTERISTICS OF SI AND SIO2 WITH A LOW-ENERGY ARGON HYDROGEN DC PLASMA SOURCE/, Surface & coatings technology, 97(1-3), 1997, pp. 158-162
The effect of a low energy argon/hydrogen are discharge on the etch ra
te of silicon and silicon dioxide is investigated with respect to ultr
ahigh vacuum (UHV) wafer cleaning. At room temperature. the reaction s
peed depends on the partial pressure oi the H radicals and the dischar
ge current. Furthermore, the etch rates show Arrhenius dependence vers
us substrate temperature with negative activation energies of -1.7 kca
l mol(-1) and -0.7 kcal mol(-1) for Si and SiO2, respectively. The pro
cess window to operate the plasma source is very large, thereby showin
g a high grade of reliability for standard wafer cleaning under UHV co
nditions. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science S.A.