Micro‐/Nanopillars for Micro‐ and Nanotechnologies Using Inductively Coupled Plasmas

Abstract

Herein, the plasma etching mask transfer of the resistance of e‐beam resists, both negative and positive, as well as nanoparticle masks and hard masks are investigated. Various microscale and nanoscale features are exposed under plasma etching chemistries and are examined through both Bosch and pseudo‐Bosch processes using an inductive‐coupled plasma‐deep reactive ion etching (ICP‐DRIE) system. The selection of masks transfer proposed in this work provides better flexibility and cost‐effective processing. The etch profile depending on plasma etching process and feature size is studied and highlighted. In particular, nanopillars are etched to a length of 10 μm and a diameter of 280 nm with a good aspect ratio (>30) yielding a selectivity of better than 100:1 and a satisfactory vertical profile.