Proposal Number: CTS-0087315 Principal Investigator: Mark Swihart Institution: SUNY Buffalo
The objective of this proposal is to construct mechanistic models of chemical reactions for use in the prediction of cluster formation leading to the production of particle nuclei. The major challenge is constructing mechanistic models is the extreme complexity created by accounting for all possible reactions, products, and reactive intermediates. Automatic generation of reaction mechanisms will be used to deal with the complexity. A system will be developed to convert a set of reactants and rules by which they react into a detailed chemical mechanisms with rate parameters. The PIs plan to focus on silicon deposition because this system is of importance in the microelectronics industry and because some experimental data on this system are available for comparison with simulations. This approach will be employed to predict silicon nanoparticle contaminant formation, which is a leading cause of yield loss, in semiconductor processing. This project will be a collaboration between the PI and co-PI (Linda Broadbelt) at Northwestern University. This work could lead to a more general predictive description of a particle formation. Model validation will be performed with limited data available in the literature. This work may be useful in predicting the effects for changing operating conditions on particle formation and contamination with the potential to increase yields of semiconductor materials.
