Title :
Highly Chemical Reactive Ion Etching of Silicon in CF4 Containing Plasmas
Author :
Rosli, Siti Azlina ; Aziz, Azlan Abdul ; Hamid, Haslinda Abdul
Author_Institution :
Univ. Sains Malaysia, Pinang
fDate :
Oct. 29 2006-Dec. 1 2006
Abstract :
Silicon (Si) etching process with low temperature is used for initial processing of semiconductor field emitter array cathodes for vacuum microelectronics, for optical reflecting gratings, for opto- and micromechanical devices. Most of them are performed by dry etching process especially in reactive ion etching (RIE) method with fluorocarbon-gases such as CF4, CHF3 and C3F8. In this work, results are shown that reactive ion etching of silicon using CF4/H2 is capable at meeting the requirement (anisotropy, high etch rate and high selectivity, simultaneously) similar to that by using reactive ion etching with fluorine-containing plasma. We have investigated the etching rate dependency on the percentage of hydrogen in the gas mixture, the total pressure and flow gas and found that by using a gas mixture with 33% of H2, the optimum rate of Si is achieved. The etch rate are found to increase with voltage, attaining a maximum rate 1780 A/min at -482V. Surface morphology of the etched samples is characterized by scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy. The results revealed that the etched surface was anisotropic and the smoothness of the etched surface is comparable to that of polished wafer.
Keywords :
atomic force microscopy; elemental semiconductors; organic compounds; plasma materials processing; scanning electron microscopy; silicon; sputter etching; surface morphology; atomic force microscopy; dry etching process; etching rate dependency; fluorine-containing plasma; fluorocarbon-gases; highly chemical reactive ion etching; micromechanical devices; optical reflecting gratings; optomechanical devices; scanning electron microscopy; semiconductor field emitter array cathodes; silicon etching process; surface morphology; vacuum microelectronics; Anisotropic magnetoresistance; Atomic force microscopy; Chemicals; Dry etching; Optical arrays; Plasma applications; Plasma chemistry; Plasma temperature; Silicon; 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.2006.380759