Patent ID: 8105465

Claim:
A method of forming an amorphous carbon layer on a substrate, comprising: positioning a substrate in a substrate processing chamber; performing a deposition cycle, comprising: introducing a hydrocarbon source having a carbon to hydrogen atom ratio greater than 1:2 into the processing chamber; introducing a plasma initiating gas selected from the group consisting of hydrogen, helium, argon, nitrogen, and combinations thereof into the processing chamber, with the hydrocarbon source having a volumetric flow rate to plasma initiating gas volumetric flow rate ratio of 1:2 or greater; generating a plasma in the processing chamber at a RF power density of 1 W/cm 2 or less, a pressure of 2 Torr or greater, and a temperature of about 300° C. to about 480° C.; forming a conformal amorphous carbon layer on the substrate; and performing a purge processing step after forming the conformal amorphous carbon layer by flowing a purge gas through the processing chamber, wherein the purge processing step comprises a pause step time and forming the conformal amorphous carbon layer comprises a deposition step time, wherein the ratio of the pause step time to the deposition step time is from about 100:1 to about 1:100; and repeating the deposition cycle from 2 to 50 times.