Technology

Rapid Thermal ALD

Our Rapid Thermal ALD technology uses a “flash” of temperature to convert the chemisorbed precursor to the final coating product, using a high intensity linear lamp for batch processing, or a laser for patterned film deposition.

Optimized Temperature for Each Half-Reaction

Precursor chemisorption may occur at low temperature, while the reaction for conversion can occur at much higher temperature, as the two steps are spatially isolated.

RTP at the ALD Cycle Frequency

Just as with conventional bulk RTP technologies used in the semiconductor and display industries, high temperature annealing affects can be attained at lower substrate temperature, but here we anneal the film one molecular layer at a time, for extremely short times.

Enabler for Patterned Deposition

For patterned deposition, we use a laser to “write” the pattern, so that only the pattern is converted to the coating, with resolution limited only by the laser beam width.

High Deposition Speed

Thermal Batch ALD can be performed at several cycles per second, while laser patterned RT-ALD can be written at meters per second.

Ultra-rapid thermal exposure, with low substrate temperatures.

High temperature quality thermal ALD at low substrate temperature

Incomparable throughput for batch and patterned thermal ALD

Direct deposition of patterned coatings with high resolution (using the laser)

High performance thermal ALD at low substrate temperature.

This technology allows the use of thermally unstable precursors to be employed in high temperature processing, providing access to a broad and more flexible precursor set for high performance coatings, and allowing high temperature processing on thermally sensitive substrates. Fine detail patterned coatings can be fabricated using the laser scanning technology.