In particular embodiments, anomalous plasma events, which may include formation of an electric arc in a semiconductor processing chamber, may be detected and mitigated. In certain embodiments, a method may include detecting an optical signal emitted by a plasma, converting the optical signal to a voltage signal, and forming an adjusted voltage signal. Responsive to determining that the changes associated with the adjusted voltage signal exceed a threshold, an output power of an RF signal coupled to the chamber may be adjusted. Such adjustment may mitigate formation of the anomalous plasma event occurring within the chamber.

A method and apparatus for determining a stability of plasma in a plasma processing apparatus for performing a plasma processing by converting into plasma a processing gas supplied into a processing container. The method includes: detecting a light emission intensity of the plasma in the processing container while the plasma is generated in the processing container; generating a first function representing a relationship between time and the light emission intensity from a detection result of the light emission intensity; differentiating the first function with time to calculate a differential value, and generating a second function from a relationship between an absolute value of the differential value and time; and integrating the second function with time to calculate an integral value, and determining a stability of the plasma based on the calculated integral value. A related apparatus is also provided.

A method of conditioning internal surfaces of a plasma source includes flowing first source gases into a plasma generation cavity of the plasma source that is enclosed at least in part by the internal surfaces. Upon transmitting power into the plasma generation cavity, the first source gases ignite to form a first plasma, producing first plasma products, portions of which adhere to the internal surfaces. The method further includes flowing the first plasma products out of the plasma generation cavity toward a process chamber where a workpiece is processed by the first plasma products, flowing second source gases into the plasma generation cavity. Upon transmitting power into the plasma generation cavity, the second source gases ignite to form a second plasma, producing second plasma products that at least partially remove the portions of the first plasma products from the internal surfaces.

Disclosed herein is a device for measuring a plasma ion density, which includes a transceiver antenna configured to apply and receive a microwave, of which a frequency is varied, to and from plasma, and a frequency analyzer configured to analyze a frequency of the microwave received from the transceiver antenna and measure a cut-off frequency, wherein the frequency of the microwave applied to the plasma is varied in the range of 100 kHz to 500 MHz.

The disclosure relates to microwave cavity plasma reactor (MCPR) apparatus and associated optical measurement system that enable microwave plasma assisted chemical vapor deposition (MPACVD) of a component such as diamond while measuring the local surface properties of the component while being grown. Related methods include deposition of the component, measurement of the local surface properties, and/or alteration of operating conditions during deposition in response to the local surface properties. As described in more detail below, the MPCR apparatus includes one or more electrically conductive, optically transparent regions forming part of the external boundary of its microwave chamber, thus permitting external optical interrogation of internal reactor conditions during deposition while providing a desired electrical microwave chamber to maintain selected microwave excitation modes therein.

A plasma processing apparatus includes: a detector configured to detect a change in an intensity of light emission from plasma formed inside a processing chamber; and a unit configured to adjust conditions for forming the plasma or processing a wafer arranged inside the processing chamber using an output from the detector, wherein the detector detects a signal of the intensity of light emission at plural time instants before an arbitrary time instant during processing, and wherein the adjusting unit removes the component of a temporal change of a long cycle of the intensity of light emission from this detected signal and detects the component of a short temporal change of the intensity of light emission, and adjusts the conditions for forming the plasma or processing a wafer arranged inside the processing chamber based on the short temporal change of the detected intensity of light emission.

Controlling an etch process applied to a multi-layered structure, by calculating a spectral derivative of reflectance of an illuminated region of interest of a multi-layered structure during an etch process applied to the multi-layered structure, identifying in the spectral derivative a discontinuity that indicates that an edge of a void formed by the etch process at the region of interest has crossed a layer boundary of the multi-layered structure, determining that the crossed layer boundary corresponds to a preselected layer boundary of the multi-layered structure, and applying a predefined control action to the etch process responsive to determining that the crossed layer boundary corresponds to the preselected layer boundary of the multi-layered structure.

A magnetic resonance apparatus comprising: a magnetic system configured to provide a magnetic field throughout at least a portion of a cavity, the magnetic field based on magnetic-system-control-data; a transmitter antenna disposed at least partly within the cavity and configured to transmit radio-frequency-transmitted-signalling based on transmitter-control-data; and a receiver antenna disposed at least partly within the cavity and configured to receive radio-frequency-received-signalling representative of magnetic resonance interactions of at least one object, disposed within the portion of the cavity, with the magnetic field and the radio-frequency-transmitted-signalling; wherein, at least one of the transmitter antenna, the receiver antenna and the magnetic system comprises a plasma antenna, and the magnetic resonance imaging apparatus is configured to provide received-data representative of the radio-frequency-received-signalling, the received-data in combination with the magnetic-system-control-data and the transmitter-control-data suitable for providing magnetic resonance imaging and/or magnetic resonance spectroscopy of the at least one object.

Disclosed is a window device for diagnosis of plasma OES (Optical Emission Spectroscopy). The window device includes a housing including a first chamber and a second chamber horizontally adjacent to each other; a connection opening defined in one face of the housing and between the first chamber and the second chamber, wherein the connection opening faces toward an opening through which light of plasma from a plasma chamber is exposed to the connection opening; an observation window opening defined in an opposite face of the housing opposite to the connection opening, wherein the observation window opening is coaxial with the connection opening, wherein the light of the plasma transmits through the observation window opening, and is incident to a light receiver of an OES sensor; an observation window positioned inside the observation window opening and in the housing; a winder and a rewinder installed in the first chamber and the second chamber, respectively; and a transparent film moving, in a roll-to-roll manner, from the rewinder to the winder while covering an inner face of the connection opening in the housing.

A vacuum processing apparatus includes a processing unit comprising a processing chamber disposed in a vacuum container, a detector detecting a thickness of the target film on a wafer or an end point during the processing of the wafer using a light from the wafer, the detector being functioned to detect the thickness or the end point by comparing a data pattern of obtained in advance indicating light intensities of a plurality of wavelengths related to the film thickness using the wavelength as a parameter and a real data pattern indicating the light intensities of the plurality of wavelengths obtained at a particular time during the processing, and the data pattern being obtained by dividing differential coefficient value of time-series data of the light intensities of the plurality of wavelengths by time-series data indicating values of the light intensities of the plurality of wavelengths.