In-situ wide area vacuum ultraviolet lamp

Claim 1

An in-situ wide area vacuum ultraviolet radiation apparatus, the apparatus comprising: vacuum chamber means; a ring-shaped cold cathode within said vacuum chamber means having a geometrically shaped inner surface comprising a material selected for the efficient emission of secondary electrons and for minimum cathode sputtering; a ring-shaped cathode shell coaxially covering an outer surface of said ring-shaped cold cathode; D.C. power supply means electrically connected to said ring-shaped cold cathode and to the vacuum chamber means for accelerating secondary electrons emitted from the inner surface of said ring-shaped cold cathode to create a generally disc-shaped trapped electron beam discharge; a workpiece positioned within said vacuum chamber means, adjacent one side of the dsc-shaped trapped electron beam discharge but outside the volume defined thereby, for receiving radiation from the disc-shaped trapped electron beam discharge; vacuum control means coupled to said vacuum chamber means for establishing and maintaining a desired vacuum within said vacuum chamber means; and gas port means for admitting and controlling the flow of ambient and reactant gases into said vacuum chamber means.

Claim 25

A method for in-situ wide area VUV processing of a thin film substrate structure, the method comprising the steps of: establishing a controlled gas atmosphere in an evacuated chamber, the controlled gas atmosphere including one or more ambient and one or more feedstock reactant gases; producing a confined, disc-shaped electron beam discharge within the evacuated chamber using a ring-shaped cold cathode located within the evacuated chamber, the confined, disc-shaped electron beam discharge being produced adjacent a selected surface of the thin film substrate structure so that a planar axis of the confined, disc-shaped electron beam discharge is substantially parallel to the selected surface of the thin film substrate structure so as to dissociate molcules of the one or more feedstock reactant gases to produce dissociation products by electron beam interaction with the one or more ambient gases and to create both VUV radiation and a flux of atomic species from one or more of the dissociation products of feedstock reactant gases.

Claim 26

A method for in-situ wide area VUV processing of a thin film substrate structure, the method comprising the steps of: establishing a controlled gas atmosphere in an evacuated chamber, the controlled gas atmosphere including one or more ambient and one or more feedstock reactant gases; producing a confined, disc-shaped electron beam discharge within the evacuated chamber using a ring-shaped cold cathode located within the evacuated chamber, the confined, disc-shaped electron beam discharge being produced adjacent a selected surface of the thin film substrate structure so that a planar axis of the confined, disc-shaped electron beam discharge is substantially parallel to the selected surface of the thin film substrate structure so as to dissociate molcules of the one or more feedstock reactant gases to produce dissociation products by electron beam interaction with the one or more ambient gases and to create both VUV radiation and a flux of atomic species from one or more of the dissociation products of feedstock reactant gases.