DAVID
B. GRAVES
PROFESSOR OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
The Graves group is studying ways to minimize emissions in the semiconductor
industry.
David Graves: Plasma Physics Research
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Jud
King and his wife, Jeanne, at the Tan Hall dedication.
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The move to Tan Hall from Gilman Hall resulted in a great increase in the amount and quality of space for experimental studies for the Graves group. The Graves group studies, primarily, phenomena in gaseous plasmas, especially as used in manufacturing semiconductor devices and related thin solid film devices.
Historically, the group has focused much effort on modeling and numerical simulation of plasmas, with only a limited effort experimentally. But that changed dramatically when we moved to Tan Hall. From that time, the group expanded considerably into experimental studies, and now the second or third generation of experimental Ph.D. students have completed their thesis work in Tan Hall.
Reducing
Environmental Impact
Several different types of projects have been, and are continuing, in
Tan Hall. One set of projects involves studies of environmental challenges
in the semiconductor industry.The group has been involved in an engineering
research center jointly supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF)
and the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) entitled: “The NSF/SRC
Engineering Research Center on Environmentally Benign Semiconductor Manufacturing.”
For example, the group has studied ways to avoid or minimize the emission
of perfluorocarbon and hydrofluorocarbon (PFC and HFC) gases from various
plasma processes.
We are currently studying the nature of by-products created in plasma etch equipment from etching various new materials such as low and high dielectric constant insulating materials, as well as etching of proposed new metallic gate electrode materials. The experimental equipment used for these studies was donated, in part, by Lam Research Corporation and IBM Research.
Plasma
Surface Interactions
Another
effort that expanded when we moved to Tan Hall was experimental studies
of plasma-surface interactions using vacuum-beam systems. Our first system
was donated by the IBM Almaden Research Center, and this system has now
been used by three generations of Ph.D. students. Dr. John Coburn, retired
from IBM Research, has helped greatly in defining and conducting these
experiments. For example, in this system we studied the mechanisms and
kinetics associated with radical-surface abstractive recombination reactions
that often dominate the chemistry of halogencontaining plasma etch reactors.
More recently, studies of radical-assisted atomic layer chemical vapor deposition of thin films were made in this system. We have now built an additional vacuum-beam system, in part from equipment donated by Lam Research Corporation. This research focuses on fundamental understanding of the nature of radical-surface and ion-surface interactions, especially as applied to challenges associated with making interconnects for semiconductor devices (the so-called ‘back-end’ of the process of semiconductor device manufacture). These studies are also relevant to a general understanding of nanometer-scale control of surfaces exposed to reactive plasmas.
The Graves group uses this vacuum beam analysis system
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© 2002 UC Regents
College of Chemistry UC Berkeley
Harvey Blanch: Biochemical Engineering
David Graves: Plasma Physics Research
Roya Maboudian: Semiconductor Surfaces
Susan Muller: Studying the Mechanics of Complex Fluids
Clayton Radke: Colloids and Interfaces
Angelica Stacy: Solid State Chemistry