The comparison of reactive ion etching and plasma etching in a parallel-plate reactor

Abstract

Reactive ion etching (RIE) and plasma etching (PE) of different materials (GaAs, Si3N4 SiO2 and photoresist Microposit 1350 H) in freon 116 are compared in the present article. The importance of ion bombardment for the etching rate is evident from the experimental results. GaAs is etched only by RIE due to ion milling, the etching rates of Si3N4 and SiO2 are 4 to 5 times higher by RIE than PE.