JPS627686B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention applies a voltage between electrodes placed opposite each other in a reaction chamber to generate a glow discharge, for example in the production of amorphous silicon solar cells, and The present invention relates to a mass-produced thin film production apparatus that can perform the process of decomposing a gas and depositing at least one of the reactive gas components as a thin film on a substrate supported by an electrode in an assembly line operation.

As an apparatus for forming thin films on a large number of substrates by plasma CVD, a batch-type system can be considered that processes a large number of substrates simultaneously in a large reaction chamber, similar to the conventional CVD method. However, with this method, the operation of loading and unloading a large number of substrates is complicated, and the vacuum in the reaction chamber must be broken each time to take out the substrates, making it difficult to obtain high operating efficiency.

In contrast, an object of the present invention is to provide a mass-produced thin film production apparatus that can produce a thin film on a substrate by assembly line operation while maintaining a vacuum in a reaction chamber.

The purpose of this is to provide a front chamber and a rear chamber adjacent to each other through airtight doors that can be opened and closed on both sides of the reaction chamber, and the three chambers, the reaction chamber, front chamber, and rear chamber, can be evacuated independently. Furthermore, a movable conveyor that spans the three chambers and two rails that are laid across the three chambers and whose portions located inside the reaction chamber form a power supply conductor are provided, and are supported on the conveyor to form a pair at equal intervals. This is achieved by connecting each of the electrodes to each of the feed conductors via a contact that slides on a rail.

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. In the figure, the front chamber 2 is adjacent to the reaction chamber 1.
and a rear chamber 3 are provided. Openable and closable doors 4 and 5 are present at the boundaries between the reaction chamber 1 and the front chamber 2 and rear chamber 3, and the front chamber 2 and rear chamber 3 have openable and closable doors (not shown) in front. Each door is closed airtight, and each chamber 1 to 3 can be evacuated independently from the exhaust ports 6, 7, and 8 by a vacuum system (not shown) when each door is closed. Furthermore, a belt conveyor 9 is provided on the bottom of each chamber 1 to 3, spanning the respective chambers, and two rails 10, 11 are laid on the ceiling spanning the respective chambers. rail 1
Reference numerals 0 and 11 are made of a conductor as power supply conductors 12 and 13 in the reaction chamber, and made of an insulator in the front and rear chambers, each of which is formed as a continuous rail with the same cross section. Susceptors 15 are vertically erected at equal intervals on top of the conveyor 9 with insulators 14 in between.
is a connecting conductor 17 with contacts 16 sliding on every other rail 10, or a rail 11
A connecting conductor 19 with a contact 18 sliding over the
are connected to each.

To form a thin film using this device, first open the front door of the front chamber 2, place the insulator 14 at a predetermined position on the belt conveyor 9, and place the substrates 20 on both sides.
The susceptor 15 with the attached susceptor 15 is stood vertically, and the contacts 16 and 18 of the connecting conductors 17 and 19 are fitted into the rails 10 and 11. Next, the front door is closed, the inside of the front chamber 2 is evacuated through the exhaust port 7, and the heater built in the susceptor 15 is energized to heat the substrate 20 to a predetermined temperature. The heater is energized within the conveyor 9 or via a separately provided power supply conductor. Next, the door between the chamber 1 and the reaction chamber 1, which is already in a vacuum state, is opened, and the conveyor 9 is operated to move the susceptor 15, which has been in the front chamber 2, into the reaction chamber. At this time, the contactor 16 or 18 connected to each susceptor 15
slides on the rail 10 or 11 and reaches the power supply conductor 12 or 13 in the reaction chamber. Here, a reaction gas, for example silane gas, is introduced into the reaction chamber 2 through the gas inlet 21 until a predetermined degree of vacuum is reached.
Susceptor 1 adjacent by feed conductors 12, 13
Amorphous silicon is deposited on each substrate 20 by applying a radio frequency voltage during step 5 to generate a glow discharge. Next, open the door 5 and move the conveyor 9.
The susceptor 15, on which the substrate covered with the amorphous silicon thin film is attached, is moved from the reaction chamber 1 to the rear chamber 3 by operating the susceptor 15. At this time, contacts 16 and 1
8 also slides from above the power supply conductors 12 and 13 to the rear chamber 3.
It reaches the insulator portion of the inner rails 10,11.
Thereafter, the door 5 is closed, the vacuum in the rear chamber 3 is broken, and the front door is opened to take out the susceptor 15 and the processed substrate 20. When repeating such operations, inserting the susceptor 15 and the substrate 20 in the front chamber 2 while the film production step in the reaction chamber 1 is in progress;
By taking out the susceptor 15 and the substrate 20 in the rear chamber 3, the operation of forming a thin film on the substrate can be performed continuously as a tact-type flow operation.

In the illustrated embodiment, substrates 20 are attached to both sides of the susceptor 15 in order to simultaneously process as many substrates as possible, but the substrate is attached to only one susceptor 15, and the adjacent susceptor does not have a built-in heater. It may be replaced with a dedicated electrode. In this case, glow discharge can also be generated by applying a positive DC voltage to the exclusive electrode side via the power supply conductors 12 and 13.

The distance between the power supply conductors 12 and 13 must be sufficiently larger than the distance between the susceptors (electrodes) 15, for example, 1.5 times or more, to prevent discharge from occurring between the power supply conductors.

In addition, although the example shown in the figure has one reaction chamber,
This can be increased as needed. For example, when producing pin three-layer amorphous silicon, three reaction chambers are provided, separated by doors that can be opened and closed, and the required film thickness p, i is controlled by controlling the reaction gas components and discharge conditions in each chamber. , n layers, open the boundary door, move the substrates by a conveyor, and stack the desired pin structure. In this case, in order to control the discharge, it is necessary to insulate the rail between each reaction chamber and to make the power supply conductor of each reaction chamber independent.

In the device according to the invention a conveyor is moved through the walls of each chamber which can be evacuated. Therefore, at that time, there is a possibility that vacuum leakage may occur at the penetrating portion, but since the conveyor is not operated during the reaction, the vacuum leakage will not directly affect the quality of the produced film.

As explained above, the present invention utilizes the chambers provided before and after the reaction chamber to perform the insertion of the susceptor or electrode and the substrate, the thin film production reaction process, and the removal of the susceptor or electrode and the finished substrate using the vacuum in the reaction chamber. It enables tact-type assembly line work for thin film production by sequentially performing the process without breaking and moving between them using a conveyor, and is particularly effective for mass production of amorphous silicon films for solar cells due to its high operating efficiency. Since it can be applied, the effects obtained are extremely large.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

The figure is a sectional view of an embodiment of a thin film production device according to the present invention. 1... Reaction chamber, 2... Front chamber, 3... Back chamber, 4,
5...Door, 6,7,8...Exhaust port, 9...Belt conveyor, 10,11...Rail, 12,13
...Feeding conductor, 15...Susceptor, 16, 18...
...Contactor, 20...Substrate, 21...Gas inlet.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1 A voltage is applied between electrodes arranged oppositely in the reaction chamber to generate a glow discharge, decompose the reaction gas supplied into the reaction chamber, and transfer at least one of the reaction gas components onto the substrate supported by the electrodes. In the case where a thin film is deposited on the reaction chamber, the front and rear chambers, which are adjacent to each other through airtight doors that can be opened and closed, can be independently evacuated, and a movable A conveyor and two rails are provided, which are laid across three chambers and whose portions located within the reaction chamber form a power supply conductor;
A mass-produced thin film production apparatus, characterized in that each of a pair of equally spaced electrodes supported on the conveyor is connected to each of the power supply conductors via a contact that slides on the rail.