Methods and apparatus for detection and analysis of nanoparticles from semiconductor chamber parts

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11280717-B2
Application number	US-201715805725-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 7, 2017
Priority date	Nov 7, 2016
Publication date	Mar 22, 2022
Grant date	Mar 22, 2022

Abstract

Methods and apparatuses for identifying contaminants in a semiconductor cleaning solution, including: contacting a semiconductor cleaning solution with a semiconductor manufacturing component to form an effluent including one or more insoluble analytes-of-interest; contacting the effluent including one or more insoluble analytes-of-interest with an optical apparatus configured to sense fluorescence and, optionally, Raman signals from the one or more insoluble analytes-of-interest, wherein the apparatus includes an electron multiplying charged couple device and a grating spectrometer to spectrally disperse the fluorescence and project the fluorescence on to the electron multiplying charged couple device; and identifying the one or more analytes of interest.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A system for quantitative and qualitative analysis of analytes, comprising: a cleaning tank that holds a liquid cleaning solution and a semiconductor processing chamber component: a flow cell having a first end and a second end that carries the liquid cleaning solution into and out of the flow cell, respectively; and an optical apparatus configured to direct an excitation beam toward the flow cell and to split an excitation beam reflected from the flow cell into two paths to sense fluorescence and Raman signals from one or more analytes suspended in the liquid cleaning solution, wherein the optical apparatus comprises an intensified charge coupled device on a first beam path to perform imaging of the fluorescence and Raman signals for particle counting and sizing and an electron multiplying charge coupled device and a grating spectrometer on a second beam path to spectrally disperse the fluorescence and project the fluorescence onto the electron multiplying charge coupled device for particle identification.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the semiconductor processing chamber component is at least one of a chamber liner, a chamber shield, a susceptor, or an aluminum part.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more analytes are suspended particles.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the grating spectrometer includes 1200 lines per millimeter.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the electron multiplying charged couple device is disposed within a tunable grating spectrometer suitable to disperse the fluorescence signal and Raman signal in a spectral frequency domain.

6. The system of claim 1 , further comprising a beam splitter configured to split the excitation beam reflected from the cell into the two paths.

7. The system of claim 1 , further comprising a notch spectral filter on the first beam path and configured to transmit the fluorescence and Raman signals onto the intensified charge couple device.

8. The system of claim 1 , further comprising a tubular passage running horizontally through the flow cell from the first end to the second end.

9. The system of claim 1 , further comprising one or more ion selective electrodes.

10. The system of claim 9 , wherein the one or more ion selective electrodes are suitable for detecting one or more ions selected from the group consisting of K+, Na+, Cl, NH3, Ca2+, S2−, Ag+, Pb3+, Pb4+, NO2−, NO3−, CN, F, and combinations thereof.

11. The system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more analytes comprise a metal.

12. The system of claim 11 , wherein the metal is one or more of copper, gold, aluminum, nickel, chromium, nichrome, germanium, silver, titanium, tungsten, platinum, tantalum, and combinations thereof.

13. The system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more analytes comprise a non-metal.

14. The system of claim 13 , wherein the non-metal is a metal oxide, metal fluoride, nitride, and combinations thereof.

15. The system of claim 1 , further comprising a slit hole positioned between a lens and the grating spectrometer to focus a point of light onto the grating spectrometer.

16. The system of claim 15 , wherein the lens is configured to focus one of the fluorescence signal or the Raman signal on the electron multiplying charged couple device image plane.

17. The system of claim 15 , wherein the slit hole is a 50 micrometer slit hole.

Assignees

• Applied Materials Inc

Inventors

• Goradia Prerna
• Ghosh Avishek
• Visser Robert Jan

Classifications

• G01N21/6458 Primary

  Fluorescence microscopy (fluorescence microscopes per se G02B21/0076 and G02B21/16) · CPC title

• G01N15/1459

  the analysis being performed on a sample stream · CPC title

• G01N2021/6417

  Spectrofluorimetric devices · CPC title

• G01N21/94

  Investigating contamination, e.g. dust (G01N21/85 takes precedence) · CPC title

• B01L2300/0822

  Slides · CPC title