Plasma film-forming apparatus and cleaning method for the same

Abstract

In a plasma film-forming apparatus which includes a film-forming chamber in which a substrate is arranged, a film-forming gas introducing pipe connected to a supply source of a film-forming gas at its first end, a shower plate through numerous holes of which a second end of said film-forming gas introducing pipe communicate with said film-forming chamber, film-gas exciting means for exciting film-forming gas introduced through said shower plate into said film-forming chamber, to form a film on the surface of said substrate with the chemical reaction, radicals-producing means which excites said cleaning gas and produces radicals, and cleaning-gas introducing means which introduces said cleaning gas containing said radicals into said film-forming chamber, the improvement in which said cleaning-gas introducing means communicate directly with said film-forming chamber.

What is claimed is:  
     
         1 . In a cleaning method for a plasma film-forming apparatus in a film-forming operation wherein a film-forming gas is introduced through a shower plate having numerous holes into a film-forming chamber, the introduced gas is excited and forms a film with the chemical reaction on a surface of a substrate arranged in said film-forming chamber, and in a cleaning operation, a cleaning-gas containing radicals produced by exciting said cleaning-gas is introduced into said film-forming chamber and cleans said film-forming chamber by chemical reaction of said radicals and removes materials to be cleaned; the improvement comprising introducing said cleaning gas containing said radicals directly into said film-forming chamber.  
     
     
         2 . A cleaning method for a plasma film-forming chamber according to  claim 1 , including in said cleaning operation, introducing inert gas into said film-forming chamber in addition to said cleaning gas containing radicals, exciting said inert gas to inert ions, and cleaning said film-forming chamber with the chemical reaction of said radicals and with the sputtering of said inert gas ions.