Visualizing Molybdenum Pentachloride Flow During Vapor Deposition Processes Using Absorption Imaging

An absorption imaging technique was described for visualizing molybdenum pentachloride (MoCl₅) flow during an atomic layer deposition/pulsed chemical vapor deposition process. The imaging system was composed of a telecentric lens and a commercial 7.1-megapixels (MP) complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) camera. The light source was a fiber-coupled light emitting diode operating at a peak emission wavelength of 443 nm. Flow images of MoCl₅ vapor entrained in a carrier gas were recorded at approximately 93 frames per second in a research-grade vapor deposition chamber. The utility of this technique was illustrated by comparing the MoCl₅ flow patterns for two precursor injection conditions, conditions consisting of different argon carrier gas flow rate and chamber pressure. For a low flow rate and chamber pressure, the flow images showed a gradual expansion of the MoCl₅ concentration front through the field of view with a relatively short MoCl₅ residence time. These flow patterns result in a relatively uniform precursor concentration front impinging on the wafer surface with the precursor being efficiently exhausted from the chamber, making these conditions desirable for thin film deposition in this chamber. For a high carrier gas flow rate and elevated chamber pressure, the flow images showed a high gas velocity jet impinging on the wafer chuck surface and the formation of gas recirculation zones, resulting in a relatively long residence time. These flow conditions would make it difficult to reproducibly deposit uniform thin films in this chamber. This comparison demonstrated the utility of this technique for qualitative characterization of precursor flow fields with minimal data processing. However, the two-dimensional data obtained from this technique can also provide the basis for training and validating computational fluid dynamics models. Furthermore, the addition of duplicate optical systems would provide the basis for determining the three-dimensional precursor distribution through tomographic analysis.