Innovative remote plasma source for ALD for GaN devices

Impedans Semion RFEA System as used in the Award Winning Paper at the 21^st International ALD Conference

The paper* discusses a new remote plasma ALD system, Oxford Instruments Atomfab™, which includes an innovative, RF-driven, remote plasma source. The plasma species were investigated to find if the source allows for low-damage processing. In particular, the ion flux and ion energy values measured using Semion Retarding Field Energy Analyzer. To easily measure the above mentioned values, the standard pressure of ∼375 mTorr was chosen as the maximum pressure in the experiments.

Key features of the Semion RFEA are as follows: 

• Measures the ion flux and ion energy distribution hitting a surface in real-time using an imitation substrate with up to 13 sensing elements that can investigate the uniformity of ion flux and ion energy distribution. 
• Provides live in-situ measurement of the ion energies and ion flux under processing condition. 
• Measures from high vacuum up to 1.5 Torr under certain conditions.