Reactor for coating particles in stationary chamber with rotating paddles

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11717800-B2
Application number	US-202016855860-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 22, 2020
Priority date	Apr 24, 2019
Publication date	Aug 8, 2023
Grant date	Aug 8, 2023

Abstract

A reactor for coating particles includes a stationary vacuum chamber to hold a bed of particles to be coated, a vacuum port in an upper portion of the chamber, a chemical delivery system configured to inject a reactant or precursor gas into a lower portion of the chamber, a paddle assembly, and a motor to rotate a drive shaft of the paddle assembly. The lower portion of the chamber forms a half-cylinder. The paddle assembly includes a rotatable drive shaft extending through the chamber along the axial axis of the half cylinder, and a plurality of paddles extending radially from the drive shaft such that rotation of the drive shaft by the motor orbits the plurality of paddles about the drive shaft.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A reactor for coating particles, comprising:
a stationary vacuum chamber to hold a bed of particles to be coated, the chamber having a lower portion that forms a half-cylinder and an upper portion, the half-cylinder having a horizontally extending axial axis;
a vacuum port in the upper portion of the chamber;
a vacuum pump coupled to the vacuum port;
a source for a reactant or precursor gas;
one or more passages through a wall of the lower portion of the chamber to inject the reactant or precursor gas from the source into the lower portion of the chamber;
a paddle assembly including
a rotatable drive shaft extending through the chamber along the horizontally extending axial axis of the half cylinder,
a motor to rotate the drive shaft,
a plurality of groups of paddles at different positions along the drive shaft, each paddle of the plurality of groups of paddles having a primary planar surface with a normal intersecting a plane normal to the horizontally extending axial axis at an oblique angle, each group of paddles including a plurality of paddles positioned in a common plane normal to the drive shaft, the plurality of paddles extending radially from the drive shaft such that the rotation of the drive shaft by the motor orbits the plurality of paddles about the drive shaft.

2. The reactor of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of groups of paddles are configured to sweep along an entirety of a length of the lower portion of the chamber.

3. The reactor of claim 1 , outer edges of the paddles are separated from an inner surface of a wall of the lower portion of the chamber by a gap.

4. The reactor of claim 3 , wherein the gap is 1-3 mm.

5. A reactor for coating particles, comprising:
a stationary vacuum chamber to hold a bed of particles to be coated, the chamber having a lower portion that forms a half-cylinder and an upper portion, the half-cylinder having a horizontally extending axial axis;
a vacuum port in the upper portion of the chamber;
a vacuum pump coupled to the vacuum port;
a source for a reactant or precursor gas;
one or more passages through a wall of the lower portion of the chamber to inject the reactant or precursor gas from the source into the lower portion of the chamber;
a paddle assembly including
a rotatable drive shaft extending through the chamber along the horizontally extending axial axis of the half cylinder,
a motor to rotate the drive shaft,
a plurality of paddles extending radially from the drive shaft such that the rotation of the drive shaft by the motor orbits the plurality of paddles about the drive shaft, wherein the plurality of paddles comprise a first plurality of outer paddles at a first radial distance from the drive shaft and a first plurality of inner paddles at a second radial distance from the drive shaft, wherein the second radial distance is smaller than the first radial distance, wherein each paddle of the plurality of paddles has a primary planar surface with a normal intersecting a plane normal to the horizontally extending axial axis at an oblique angle.

6. The reactor of claim 5 , wherein the first plurality of outer paddles are oriented at a first oblique angle and the first plurality of inner paddles are oriented at a second oblique angle that is opposite in sign to the first oblique angle.

7. The reactor of claim 6 , wherein the second oblique angle is equal in magnitude to the first oblique angle.

8. The reactor of claim 5 , wherein the first plurality of outer paddles are oriented at a first oblique angle so as to drive particles in a first direction along the axial axis and the first plurality of inner paddles are oriented at a second oblique angle so as to drive particles in a second direction along the axial axis opposite to the first direction when the first plurality of inner paddles and the first plurality of inner paddles orbit in a same direction about the drive shaft.

9. The reactor of claim 8 , wherein the plurality of paddles comprise a second plurality of outer paddles at a third radial distance from the drive shaft and a second plurality of inner paddles at a fourth radial distance from the drive shaft, wherein the fourth radial distance is smaller than the third radial distance, wherein the second plurality of outer paddles are oriented at a third oblique angle so as to drive particles in the second direction and the second plurality of inner paddles are oriented at a fourth oblique angle so as to drive particles in the first direction.

10. The reactor of claim 9 , wherein the third radial distance equals the first radial distance, the fourth radial distance equals the second radial distance, and wherein the third oblique angle is equal in magnitude and opposite in direction to the first oblique angle, and the fourth oblique angle is equal in magnitude and opposite in direction to the second oblique angle.

11. The reactor of claim 10 , wherein the third oblique angle equals the second oblique angle and the fourth oblique angle equals the first oblique angle.

12. The reactor of claim 10 , wherein the first plurality of outer paddles and the first plurality of inner paddles are positioned on a first side of a dividing plane through the chamber normal to the axial axis, and the second plurality of outer paddles and the second plurality of inner paddles are positioned on an opposite second side of the dividing plane.

13. The reactor of claim 12 , comprising a port to deliver particles to or receive particles from the chamber, the port positioned at the dividing plane.

14. The reactor of claim 13 , wherein the first plurality of outer paddles and the second plurality of outer paddles are oriented so as to drive particles toward the port, and the first plurality of inner paddles and the second plurality of inner paddles are oriented so as to drive particles away from the port.

15. The reactor of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of groups of paddles are spaced uniformly along the drive shaft.

16. A reactor for coating particles, comprising:
a stationary vacuum chamber to hold a bed of particles to be coated, the chamber having a lower portion that forms a half-cylinder and an upper portion, the half-cylinder having a horizontally extending axial axis;
a vacuum port in the upper portion of the chamber;
a vacuum pump coupled to the vacuum port;
a source for a reactant or precursor gas;

one or more passages through the chamber to inject the reactant or precursor gas from the source into the lower portion of the chamber,
a paddle assembly including

a rotatable drive shaft extending through the chamber along the horizontally extending axial axis of the half cylinder,
a motor to rotate the drive shaft,

a plurality of paddles extending radially from the drive shaft such that rotation of the drive shaft by the motor orbits the plurality of paddles about the drive shaft, the plurality of paddles including a plurality of groups of paddles with each group of paddles positioned in a common plane normal to the drive shaft, and wherein each group of paddles includes an outer paddle at a first radial distance from the drive shaft and an inner paddle at a second radial distance from the drive shaft, wherein the second radial distance is smaller than the first radial distance, wherein each paddle of the plurality of paddles has primary planar surface with a normal intersecting a plane normal to the horizontally extending axial axis at an oblique angle.

Assignees

• Applied Materials Inc

Inventors

• Frankel Jonathan
• Neikirk Colin C
• Narwankar Pravin K
• Truong Quoc
• Desai Govindraj
• Krishnasamy Sekar

Classifications

• B01J8/10 Primary

  moved by stirrers or by rotary drums or rotary receptacles {or endless belts} · CPC title

• B01F27/112

  with arms, paddles, vanes or blades · CPC title

• B01F27/70

  with paddles, blades or arms · CPC title

• B05D1/60

  Deposition of organic layers from vapour phase (vapour phase deposition in general C23C14/00, C23C16/00) · CPC title

• C23C16/4417

  Methods specially adapted for coating powder · CPC title