Title :
Characteristics of RIE SF6/O2/Ar Plasmas on n-Silicon Etching
Author :
Rosli, Siti Azlina ; Aziz, Azlan Abdul ; Hamid, Haslinda Abdul
Author_Institution :
Univ. Sains Malaysia, Minden
fDate :
Oct. 29 2006-Dec. 1 2006
Abstract :
In this work, highly anisotropic Si plasma etching process has been developed in reactive ion etching (RIE) reactor. The etch chemistry utilized consists of a mixture of sulphur tetra fluoride (SF6), oxygen (02) and argon (Ar). The use of nickel as masks was successfully patterned on Si by lift-off. Lines of 50 mum feature size were patterned on Si, resulting in perpendicular sidewalls and no observable undercutting. Etch rates were studied for gas compositions of SF6/O2/Ar, chamber pressures and DC bias. For chamber pressure in the range of 5 mTorr to 20 mTorr, the etch rates is found to increase with increasing dc bias, attaining a maximum rate of 2997 A/min at 20 mTorr. Surface morphology after etching is checked by atomic force microscopy and scanning electron microscopy, which show that the anisotropic of the etched surface and the smoothness of the etched surface is comparable to that of the etched.
Keywords :
argon compounds; atomic force microscopy; fluorine compounds; nickel; scanning electron microscopy; sputter etching; sulphur compounds; surface morphology; SF6-O2-Ar; anisotropic silicon plasma etching process; atomic force microscopy; etch chemistry; nickel; reactive ion etching reactor; scanning electron microscopy; surface morphology; Anisotropic magnetoresistance; Argon; Atomic force microscopy; Etching; Plasma applications; Plasma chemistry; Plasma properties; Scanning electron microscopy; Sulfur hexafluoride; Surface morphology;
Conference_Titel :
Semiconductor Electronics, 2006. ICSE '06. IEEE International Conference on
Conference_Location :
Kuala Lumpur
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-9730-4
Electronic_ISBN :
0-7803-9731-2
DOI :
10.1109/SMELEC.2006.380758