New plasma-assisted deposition technique using helicon activated reactive evaporation

Abstract

The helicon assisted reactive evaporation is a new plasma assisted reactive evaporation device that combines an evaporation source (electron-beam evaporator) and a high density plasma source (helicon plasma source), in a coaxial configuration where the evaporant material is transported through the plasma source. Evaporating silicon into an oxygen plasma yields a deposition rate of silica onto a 100-mm-diam substrate of 200 nm/min, with a refractive index identical to that of thermal silicon dioxide (1.46). This configuration is expected to have advantages over both plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition and ion assisted deposition techniques, without exhibiting the serious drawback of requiring the handling of hazardous chemical precursors. Initial results show that the electron beam can be run in conjunction with the high density helicon plasma (1012 cm−3).