Patent ID: 7897215

Claim:
A process for depositing a conformal thin film of a dielectric or conductive material on a semiconductor substrate during semiconductor device fabrication, comprising: (a) placing said semiconductor substrate in a process chamber; (b) evacuating said process chamber; (c) introducing a flow of a first reactant gas in vapor phase into said process chamber, said first reactant gas forming an adsorbed saturated layer of said first reactant gas on said substrate; (d) evacuating said process chamber; (e) exposing said substrate to a flux of ultra-violet radiation for inducing a chemical reaction of said adsorbed saturated layer of said first reactant gas to form a portion of said conformal thin film of a dielectric or conductive material, wherein the flux of ultra-violet radiation directly interacts with the adsorbed saturated layer by breaking chemical bonds within the adsorbed saturated layer to induce the chemical reaction; (f) evacuating said process chamber; and (g) repeating (c) through (f) multiple times to deposit the thin film.