Shallow and deep dry etching of silicon using ICP cryogenic reactive ion etching process

Abstract

We achieved to etch nanostructures as well as structures with high aspect ratios in silicon using an inductively coupled plasma cryogenic deep reactive ion etching process. We etched cantilevers, submicron diameter pillars, membranes and deep structures in silicon with etch rates between 13 nm/min and 4 μm/min. These structures find applications as templates for metal organic vapour phase epitaxial growth of GaN-based nanostructures for optoelectronic devices or they are the basic constituents of a nanoparticle balance in the subnanogram range and of a thermoelectric generator.