Y. Ichihashi, Y. Ishikawa, R. Shimizu
May 11, 2010
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Influential Citations
9
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Journal
Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology. B. Nanotechnology and Microelectronics: Materials, Processing, Measurement, and Phenomena
Abstract
Iodotrifluoromethane (CF3I) gas is one of the environmentally conscious perfluorocarbon gases because it has a very low global warming potential. The authors have found that CF3I gas plasma drastically reduces ultraviolet (UV) photon irradiation of ∼4.0 eV, which corresponds to the excitation energy at silicon dioxide (SiO2)/silicon (Si) interfaces, in comparison with octafluorocyclobutane (C4F8) gas. This results in reducing UV irradiation damage in dielectric film etching processes, which was experimentally confirmed by evaluating charge-pumping currents in metal insulator semiconductor field effect transistors fabricated by using CF3I gas etching. They have also demonstrated that a novel etching method using pulse-time modulation of CF3I gas plasma for the first time further reduced UV light irradiation damage.