Anisotropic reactive ion etching of silicon using SF6/02/CHF3 gas mixtures

Legtenberg, Rob and Jansen, Henri and Boer de, Meint and Elwenspoek, Miko (1995) Anisotropic reactive ion etching of silicon using SF6/02/CHF3 gas mixtures. Journal of the Electrochemical Society, 142 (6). pp. 2020-2028. ISSN 0013-4651

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Abstract:	Reactive ion etching of silicon in an RF parallel plate system, using SF6/O2/CHF3, plasmas has been studied. Etchingbehavior was found to be a function of loading, the cathode material, and the mask material. Good results with respect toreproducibility and uniformity have been obtained by using silicon as the cathode material and silicon dioxide as themasking material for mask designs where most of the surface is etched. Etch rate, selectivity, anisotropy, and self-biasvoltage have been examined as a function of SF6 flow, O2 flow, CHF3 flow, pressure, and the RF power, using responsesurface methodology, in order to optimize anisotropic etching conditions. The effects of the variables on the measuredresponses are discussed. The anisotropic etch mechanism is based on ion-enhanced inhibitor etching. SF6 provides thereactive neutral etching species, O2 supplies the inhibitor film forming species, and SF6 and CHF3 generate ion species thatsuppress the formation of the inhibitor film at horizontal surfaces. Anisotropic etching of high aspect ratio structures withsmooth etch surfaces has been achieved. The technique is applied to the fabrication of three-dimensional micromechanicalstructures.
Item Type:	Article
Copyright:	© 1995 The Electrochemical Society
Faculty:	Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science (EEMCS)
Research Group:	Transducers Science and Technology (TST)
Link to this item:	http://purl.utwente.nl/publications/14188
Official URL:	http://dx.doi.org/10.1149/1.2044234
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