Patent ID: 7763153

Claim:
An apparatus for forming a crystalline silicon thin film including: a deposition chamber having an object holder for supporting a deposition target object; a silicon sputter target arranged in said deposition chamber; a hydrogen gas supply device supplying a hydrogen gas into said deposition chamber; an exhaust device exhausting a gas from said deposition chamber; a high-frequency power applying device applying a high-frequency power to the hydrogen gas supplied into said deposition chamber from said hydrogen gas supply device, and thereby forming plasma for effecting chemical sputtering on said silicon sputter target; an optical emission spectroscopic analyzer for plasma obtaining an emission intensity ratio (Hα/SiH*) between an emission spectral intensity Hα of hydrogen atom radicals at a wavelength of 656 nm and an emission spectral intensity SiH* of silane radicals at a wavelength of 414 nm in plasma emission derived from the plasma for chemical sputtering inside said deposition chamber; a terminally treating device for terminally treating a surface of the crystalline silicon thin film formed on the deposition target object with plasma for terminating treatment generated by applying a high-frequency power to at least one terminally treating gas selected from an oxygen-containing gas and a nitrogen-containing gas; and a control portion comparing the emission intensity ratio (Hα/SiH*) obtained by the optical emission spectroscopic analyzer for plasma with a reference value predetermined within a range from 0.3 to 1.3, and controlling at least one of the magnitude of the power to be applied by the high-frequency power applying device, a supply amount of the hydrogen gas supplied from the hydrogen gas supply device into the deposition chamber, and an exhaust amount of the exhaust device such that the emission intensity ratio (Hα/SiH*) in the plasma in the deposition chamber changes toward the reference value.