Plasma-Chemical Processing of Silicon Substrates Using a Novel Arc Plasmatron

A novel arc plasma source is proposed, which has low anode erosion rate allowing it to generate nearly spectrally clean plasma flow at the lifetime of 10
³
~10
⁴
hours. The temperature of plasma near the nozzle exit is below 100 degC at arc power up to 2 kW. The design and characteristics of the plasmatron are discussed. Vacuum experiments with heterogeneous plasma-chemical processes showed that this device can serve as an effective tool for plasma-chemical treatment at pressures P~10
⁰
mbar. As an example, plasma-chemical etching processes for mono-crystal silicon in CF
₄
plasma and photo-resist on a silicon wafer in air, O
₂
and CF
₄
plasmas have been demonstrated