Patent ID: 7891366

Claim:
A liquid processing apparatus comprising: a substrate holding member configured to rotate along with a substrate held thereon in a horizontal state; a rotary cup configured to surround the substrate held on the substrate holding member, to rotate along with the substrate, and to receive the process liquid thrown off from the substrate; a rotation mechanism configured to integrally rotate the rotary cup and the substrate holding member; a liquid supply mechanism configured to supply a process liquid onto the substrate; an annular drain cup surrounding the rotary cup and configured to receive and discharge the process liquid discharged from the rotary cup; an annular exhaust cup accommodating the drain cup coaxially therewith and configured to mainly collect a gas component from inside and around the rotary cup; an exhaust port connected to the exhaust cup to discharge the gas component collected in the exhaust cup; and a gas-flow adjusting mechanism disposed between the exhaust cup and the exhaust port and configured to adjust a gas flow of the gas component to flow toward the exhaust port from essentially all around within the exhaust cup, wherein the rotary cup has a shape substantially not to cover an area above the substrate held on the substrate holding member, the drain cup accommodates the rotary cup, the exhaust cup accommodates the drain cup coaxially therewith, an upper exhaust inlet port of the exhaust cup is located above the substrate holding member, an annular buffer space is formed coaxially with the drain cup inside the exhaust cup and connected to the exhaust port, and the upper exhaust inlet port is connected to the buffer space through an annular outer-flow resistance portion configured to apply a predetermined gas-flow resistance to an exhaust gas flow from the upper exhaust inlet port, so as to cause gas exhausted from the upper exhaust inlet port to the buffer space to be uniform essentially allover an annular direction, and wherein the drain cup has an inner peripheral side and an outer peripheral side both supported by a bottom wall of the exhaust cup such that the inner peripheral side is fixed to the bottom wall by a fixing section and the outer peripheral side is not fixed to the bottom wall.