A surface treatment device includes a housing unit, a surface treatment element, and a stirring element. The housing unit houses a workpiece. The surface treatment element performs surface treatment on the workpiece housed in the housing unit. The stirring element stirs the workpiece when the surface treatment element performs the surface treatment on the workpiece.

Provided is a mask blank including an etching stopper film. The mask blank has a structure where an etching stopper film and a thin film for pattern formation are stacked in this order on a transparent substrate, featured in that the thin film includes a material containing silicon, the etching stopper film includes a material containing hafnium, aluminum, and oxygen, and a ratio by atom % of an amount of hafnium to a total amount of hafnium and aluminum in the etching stopper film is 0.86 or less.

Provided is a mask blank including an etching stopper film. The mask blank has a structure where an etching stopper film and a thin film for pattern formation are stacked in this order on a transparent substrate, featured in that the thin film includes a material containing silicon, the etching stopper film includes a material containing hafnium, aluminum, and oxygen, and a ratio by atom % of an amount of hafnium to a total amount of hafnium and aluminum in the etching stopper film is 0.86 or less.

Provided are an RF power distribution device and an RF power distribution method. The RF power distribution device includes an impedance matching network for transferring power from an RF power source and a power distribution unit for distributing the output power from the impedance matching network to at least one electrode generating capacitively-coupled plasma. The power distribution unit includes a first reactive element connected in series to a first electrode, a variable capacitor having one end connected in parallel to the first reactive element and the first electrode and the other end grounded, and a second reactive element having one end connected to a first node where the one end of the variable capacitor and one end of the first reactance device are in contact with each other and the other end connected to a second node where a second electrode and an output terminal of the impedance matching network are connected.

A gas blocking layer forming apparatus comprises a vacuum chamber that provides a space where a chemical vapor deposition process and a sputtering process are performed; a holding unit that is provided at a lower side within the vacuum chamber and mounts thereon a target object on which an organic/inorganic mixed multilayer gas blocking layer is formed; a neutral particle generation unit that is provided at an upper side within the vacuum chamber and generates a neutral particle beam having a high-density flux with a current density of about 10 A/m.sup.2 or more; and common sputtering devices that are provided at both sides of the neutral particle generation unit, wherein each common sputtering device has a sputtering target of which a surface is inclined toward a surface of the target object.

The invention is directed to a composite polymer/nanoporous film system and methods of fabrication of tunable nanoporous coatings on flexible polymer substrates. The porosity of the nanoporous film can be tuned during fabrication to a desired value by adjusting the deposition conditions. Experiments show that SiO.sub.2 coatings with tunable porosity fabricated by oblique-angle electron beam deposition can be deposited on polymer substrates. These conformable coatings have many applications, including in the field of optics where the ability to fabricate tunable refractive index coatings on a variety of materials and shapes is of great importance.

The invention is directed to a composite polymer/nanoporous film system and methods of fabrication of tunable nanoporous coatings on flexible polymer substrates. The porosity of the nanoporous film can be tuned during fabrication to a desired value by adjusting the deposition conditions. Experiments show that SiO.sub.2 coatings with tunable porosity fabricated by oblique-angle electron beam deposition can be deposited on polymer substrates. These conformable coatings have many applications, including in the field of optics where the ability to fabricate tunable refractive index coatings on a variety of materials and shapes is of great importance.

A stacked body comprising: a semiconductor layer comprising a group III-V nitride semiconductor, and an electrode layer, wherein the electrode layer comprises magnesium oxide and zinc oxide, wherein the molar ratio of magnesium based on the sum of magnesium and zinc of the electrode layer [Mg/(Mg+Zn)] is 0.25 or more and 0.75 or less, and conductivity of the electrode layer is 1.0×10.sup.−2 S/cm or more.

Provided is a cylindrical sputtering target made of a metal material, which has reduced particles. The sputtering target includes at least a target material, wherein the target material comprises one or more metal elements, the target material has a crystal grain size of 50 μm or less, and the target material has an oxygen concentration of 1000 ppm by mass or less.

Provided are a crystalline alloy having significantly better thermal stability than an amorphous alloy as well as glass-forming ability, and a method of manufacturing the crystalline alloy. The present invention also provides an alloy sputtering target that is manufactured by using the crystalline alloy, and a method of manufacturing the alloy target. According to an aspect of the present invention, provided is a crystalline alloy having glass-forming ability which is formed of three or more elements having glass-forming ability, wherein the average grain size of the alloy is in a range of 0.1 μm to 5 μm and the alloy includes 5 at % to 20 at % of aluminum (Al), 15 at % to 40 at % of any one or more selected from copper (Cu) and nickel (Ni), and the remainder being zirconium (Zr).