Patent ID: 8075733

Claim:
A plasma processing apparatus comprising: a decompression chamber of which the inside is decompressed; a gas supply unit that supplies process gas into the decompression chamber; a microwave supply unit that supplies a microwave into the decompression chamber to generate plasma; at least one coil forming a magnetic field in the decompression chamber; an object-placing electrode where a processing material, which is an object to be processed, is placed and which holds the processing material in the decompression chamber; and a vacuuming unit that is connected to the decompression chamber to discharge the gas in the decompression chamber; wherein the decompression chamber, a part for providing gas into the chamber of the gas supply unit, a part for introducing a microwave into the chamber of the microwave supply unit, the at least one coil, the object-placing electrode, and the vacuuming unit are disposed coaxially with a center axis of the decompression chamber; wherein the part for introducing a microwave includes a microwave rotation generator provided with a rectangular dielectric plate and a cylindrical dielectric plate guide having axially-symmetric opposing grooves therein for receiving and supporting the rectangular dielectric plate, the microwave rotation generator having a cross-sectional dimension enabling only the microwave of TE 11 mode to be transmitted, wherein a distance between bottoms of the opposing grooves of the cylindrical dielectric plate guide is larger than an inner diameter of a circular wave guide connected with the cylindrical dielectric plate guide of the microwave rotation generator; and wherein a polarization plane of the input microwave is rotated right or left, thereby, the microwave of the TE 11 mode being generated, the generated microwave of TE 11 mode being supplied to the decompression chamber through the circular waveguide exclusively having a dimension enabling the generated microwave of TE 11 mode transmitted.