MICHAEL A. LIEBERMAN

Professor in the Graduate School
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
Room 467 Cory Hall
University of California at Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720-1770, U.S.A.

Office phone: 510-643-6632
Fax: 510-643-7846 lieber@eecs.berkeley.edu

Administrative assistant: Rosemary Alonzo,
253 Cory Hall, rosemary@eecs.berkeley.edu,
Tel +1 (510) 642-2386, Fax +1 (510) 643-7846

RESEARCH
Research Interests
Talks
Resume
List of Publications

TEACHING
Courses

Textbook: Regular and Chaotic Dynamics

Textbook: Principles of Plasma Discharges and Materials Processing
   First Edition Errata: download pdf file
   Second Edition Errata: download pdf file
   Chinese Language Errata: download pdf file

Research Interests

Research interests are in the area of PLASMA-ASSISTED MATERIALS PROCESSING AND PROCESSING DISCHARGES: How do you dig a trench 200 atoms wide and 2000 atoms deep in a silicon wafer? How do you dope the trench or fill it with metal? Chemically reactive plasma discharges are the essential tools to do these, and are widely used in the semiconductor and flat panel display industries for etching and deposition processes. Their use has become critical for VLSI circuit and thin film transistor (TFT) production. High frequency, and confined dual frequency capacitively-coupled plasma sources are playing an increasing role in processing as feature sizes shrink and wafer and TFT substrate sizes increase. With both high and low frequency drives, independent control of ion flux and ion bombarding energy can be achieved. Confinement of the plasma to the main discharge region, and electromagnetic effects such as standing waves and skin effects, can have detrimental effects on processing uniformity.

Current research is supported by the Lam Research Corporation, the State of California MICRO and UC Discovery Programs, and California industries, and is collaborative with Professors D.B. Graves, J.P. Verboncoeur, and A.J. Lichtenberg. A list of current projects follows:

Particle-in-cell computer simulations to determine ion and fast neutral energy and angular distributions on the wafer in multi-frequency driven capacitive reactors
Development of fast algorithms to estimate the ion and fast neutral energy and angular distributions on the wafer surface
Theory and fluid simulations of standing wave and skin effects in high frequency capacitive discharges
Theory and 1- and 2D particle-in-cell simulations of combined RF- and DC-driven capacitive discharges; secondary electron energy and angular distributions on the wafer surface with/without DC enhancement
Theory and models of double layer formation in electropositive and electronegative discharges

Talks

Nanoelectronics and Plasma Processing - The Next 15 Years and Beyond (2.3 MB pdf file, One hour colloquium at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Princeton, NJ, 31 October 2007)

A Mini-Course on the Principles of Low-Pressure Discharges and Materials Processing (1.4 MB pdf file, 3 hour lecture, IUPAC Summer School on Plasma Chemistry for Materials Processing, Kyoto, Japan, 23-25 August 2007; 4 hour lecture, 12th European Summer School on Low Temperature Plasma Physics, Bad Honnef, Germany, 6-11 October 2007)

Capacitive Discharges Driven by Combined DC/RF Sources (1.9 MB pdf file, contributed 15 minute talk at the 60th Gaseous Electronics Conference, Arlington, VA, 2-5 October 2007)

Modeling and Simulation of Electromagnetic Effects in Capacitive Discharges (504 kB pdf file, poster presentation at the 60th Gaseous Electronics Conference, Arlington, VA, 2-5 October 2007)

Recent Progress on the Physics of Capacitive Discharges (3.5 MB pdf file, Invited talk at the Workshop on Radio Frequency Discharges, All Hallows College, Dublin, Ireland, 11-13 June 2007)

Nanoelectronics and Plasma Processing - The Next 15 Years and Beyond (2 MB pdf file, Allis Prize invited half-hour talk at the 2007 Meeting of the Division of Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, American Physical Society, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, June 5 - 9, 2007)

Fermi Acceleration - From Cosmic Rays to Discharge Heating (867 kB pdf file, Allis Prize 20 minute invited talk at the 48th Annual Meeting, Division of Plasma Physics, American Physical Society, October 30 - November 3, 2006)

Nanoelectronics and Plasma Processing - The Next 15 Years and Beyond (452 kB pdf file, Allis Prize one hour talk at the 59th Gaseous Electronics Conference, Columbus, OH, 9-13 October 2006)

Plasma, Sheaths, and Surfaces - The Discharge Science of Irving Langmuir (5.4 MB pdf file, Foundation Talk at the 58th Gaseous Electronics Conference, San Jose, CA, 16-20 October 2005)

Plasma Processing in the 21st Century (15.4 MB pdf file, general talk for graduate students)

Plasma Processing in the 21st Century (9.5 MB pdf file, advanced talk including a thorough presentation of dual/high frequency capacitive discharge physics)

Fermi Acceleration Revisited - From Cosmic Rays to Discharge Heating (3.9 MB pdf file, one hour historical talk on stochastic heating)

Ignition Conditions for Peripheral Plasma in a Grounded Chamber Connected to a Dual Frequency Capacitive Discharge (0.9 MB pdf file, breakdown issues in capacitive discharges)

Resume

Michael A. Lieberman received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1962 and his Ph.D. degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1966. He joined the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS) at Berkeley in 1966. In 1971, he received the Distinguished Teaching Award of the Berkeley campus. He was a Guggenheim Fellow during 1972-3. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), the American Vacuum Society, and the Institute of Physics (Great Britain). He received the IEEE Plasma Science and Applications Award in 1995, the von Engel Prize of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics in 2005, and the Will Allis Prize for Study of Ionized Gases in 2006.

Professor Lieberman's research interests are plasma processing of materials, plasma modeling and diagnostics. He has also collaborated with Prof. A.J. Lichtenberg on research in nonlinear dynamics. His monograph, co-authored with A.J. Lichtenberg, Regular and Stochastic Motion, was published by Springer-Verlag in 1983. A second edition, Regular and Chaotic Dynamics, was published in 1991. His latest book, also co-authored with A.J. Lichtenberg, Principles of Plasma Discharges and Materials Processing, was published by John Wiley and Sons in 1994. An expanded second edition was published in 2005. Erratas for both the first and second editions are available (see above):

Courses

Course EE 239, "Weakly Ionized Plasmas," is normally taught once every two years, and was last taught in Spring Semester 2007. The text used is M.A. Lieberman and A.J. Lichtenberg, Principles of Plasma Discharges and Materials Processing, Second Edition, John Wiley and Sons, 2005.