Plasma processing apparatus and method for stabilizing inner wall of processing chamber

Abstract

A plasma processing apparatus is disclosed for removing the deposition film in the processing chamber and suppressing the corrosion of wall surface material. The plasma processing apparatus includes a plasma generating means, a monitor means for detecting the existence of a reaction product containing a material constituting an inner wall of the processing chamber, and an alarm means for notifying that the existence of the reaction product containing the material constituting the inner wall of the processing chamber has exceeded a predetermined amount. The plasma processing apparatus is configured such that plasma cleaning is performed for every arbitrary etching process, and a wall surface stabilization process is subsequently performed using O 2 gas or F gas.

1 . A method for stabilizing an inner wall surface of a processing chamber in a plasma processing apparatus for subjecting an object to be processed to vacuum processing by introducing processing gas into the processing chamber in which the object is placed and generating plasma, the method comprising:
 after performing a plasma cleaning process in succession to an etching process, a wall surface stabilization process is performed in which an inner wall protection gas for protecting the inner wall surface of the processing chamber is introduced and plasma processing is performed.   
   
   
       2 . The method for stabilizing an inner wall surface of a processing chamber in a plasma processing apparatus according to  claim 1 , wherein
 the inner wall protection gas contains either an oxygen (O 2 ) gas or a fluorine-based (F) gas, and the ratio of flow rate of the Oxygen (O 2 ) gas or fluorine-based (F) gas to the total gas flow rate is at least more than 50%.