Micromachining of quartz plates: determination of a database by combined stereographic analysis and 3-D simulation of etching shapes

Simple microstructures such as mesa and membrane are micromachined on singly and doubly rotated quartz plates. A stereographic analysis of 3-D etching shapes is used to recognize rhombohedral faces limiting micromachined structures. An iterative procedure is used to adjust the database in which first we generate extrema in the dissolution slowness for these faces, and second, we compare step-by-step theoretical 3-D etching shapes with experimental structures. Theoretical shapes for microstructures are found to be in satisfactory agreement with experiments.