Sputter Deposition of Hydrogenated Amorphous Carbon Thin Film and its Application

摘要

The present invention relates to a reactive sputtering method for depositing amorphous hydrogenated carbon thin films from an argon / hydrocarbon / hydrogen / oxygen plasma, preferably an argon / acetylene-helium / hydrogen / oxygen plasma. Such a film is optically transparent in the visible light region and partially absorbs light at ultraviolet (UV) and short wavelength ultraviolet (DUV) wavelengths, particularly at 365 and 248, 193 nm wavelengths. Further, the thin film produced by the present invention is amorphous, has high hardness, is resistant to scratching, and can be etched by an excimer laser etching or an oxygen reactive ion etching process. Due to this unique nature, these films can be used to form a patterned absorber for UV and DUV single layer attenuated phase shift masks. Thin film absorption can also be increased so that these films can be used to fabricate conventional photolithographic shadow masks.