Particle source, especially for reactive ionic etching and plasma-supported CVD processes

Claim 1

A particle source, especially for reactive ion etching and plasma-enhanced CVD processes in pass-through apparatus for treating a large-area substrate, having a container completely enveloping a first plasma, a vacuum coating chamber having a chamber wall, surrounding chamber walls of the container being enveloped by an at least bipolar magnetic field generator which produces a magnetic field which fulfills an electron-cyclotron resonance, a waveguide connected to the container through an opening for the feeding of electromagnetic waves for the production of the first plasma, and a coupling window permeable to the electromagnetic waves closing the opening between the waveguide and the container, characterized in that a) the container enveloping the first plasma is configured as a plasma chamber of a substantially parallelepipedal shape, b) the interior spaces of the plasma chamber and of the vacuum chamber are joined together by a common opening in the floor of the plasma chamber and in the chamber wall, c) in the plasma chamber directly in front of the coupling window there is an additional guard window which is thermally well uncoupled from the surrounding chamber walls of the plasma chamber and has a substantially constant gap between the guard window and the chamber walls, d) a separate gas feeding is performed of inert O 2 or N 2 gas into the space between the coupling window and the guard window, and of reactive gas into the space between the guard window and the substrate, and e) between the coupling window and the guard window an intermediate plasma is ignitable and thus the power distribution of the electromagnetic waves can be influenced.