Patent ID: 8898926

Claim:
A substrate dryer comprising: a process chamber and a high-pressure chamber separated by a wall; wherein the process chamber comprises: a substrate transporting chamber for loading and carrying a substrate; a substrate drying chamber that is sealable with respect to the substrate transporting chamber via a gate for providing a sealed space disposed between the substrate transporting chamber and the wall in which to dry the substrate; and a nozzle at least partially disposed within the substrate drying chamber for supplying a supercritical fluid to the substrate drying chamber for drying the substrate; wherein the high-pressure chamber is maintained at a high-pressure state, which is at least above a critical pressure of the supercritical fluid, the high-pressure chamber being configured to increase a pressure state of the substrate drying chamber to correspond to the high-pressure state upon opening a first valve disposed in the wall between the process chamber and the high-pressure chamber, thereby maintaining the supercritical fluid above the critical pressure.