Patent ID: 9390930
Filing Date: 2016-07-12
CPC Classification: H01J,H01L

Claim Text:
1. A method for processing doped materials on a substrate surface, comprising: forming a doped layer on a substrate; generating an ionized nitrogen plasma in a remote plasma source, wherein the ionized nitrogen plasma is supplied through an inlet port to a processing chamber at an ion concentration within a range from 0.001% to 0.1%, wherein the remote plasma source is coupled to the processing chamber by an angled pipeline coupled to the inlet port and having an angle relative to the inlet port, wherein the angled pipeline encourages recombination of ions formed in the angled pipeline; de-ionizing the ionized nitrogen plasma while forming non-ionized nitrogen plasma by maintaining a processing pressure at 5 Torr or greater, but less than 20 Torr; flowing the non-ionized nitrogen plasma into a processing region within a processing chamber; forming a nitrided capping layer from an upper portion of the doped layer by exposing the doped layer within the processing region to the non-ionized nitrogen plasma during a stabilization process, wherein the non-ionized nitrogen plasma comprises non-charged gaseous species where a ratio of ions relative to the non-charged gaseous species within the processing region is 1 ppm or less; and heating the substrate containing the nitrided capping layer disposed on the doped layer during a thermal annealing process.