Plasma Reactive Ion Etching Research Articles

Investigating GaSb(001) Dry Etching by ICP-RIE on a non-Silicon Containing Sample Holder with no Organic Gases

ABSTRACTWe report the dry etch of GaSb(001) by inductively coupled plasma reactive ion etcher. Silicon Oxide, deposited by PECVD, was used as a mask. The oxide layer proved to be almost unaffected compared to the GaSb, when using chlorine compound gases as etchants (Cl2, BCl3, and SiCl4) as well as argon. This provides high selectivity for GaSb to the mask layer. The sample holder has no silicon that may contribute to the etching process. Etching using Cl2 + Ar showed increase in the etching rate as the chlorine ratio increases; however, the process led to grassy surface and chemical like reaction. The use of SiCl4+Cl2+Ar mixture with low chlorine ratio resulted in anisotropic etch with smooth sides. It has been found for this case that the increase of the chlorine ratio led to an increased etching rate as well. The repeat of previously reported result by Swaminathan et al. [Thin Solid Films 516 (2008) 8712.] yet with a sample holder not having silicon, proved the effect of Si-contribution in producing vertical profile etch with smooth surfaces.

Feature Profiles on Plasma Etch of Organic Films by a Temporal Control of Radical Densities and Real-Time Monitoring of Substrate Temperature

The precise etching of organic films with a low dielectric constant (low-k) in a dual-frequency capacitively coupled plasma etching reactor with a plasma generation of 100 MHz and an applied bias of 2 MHz employing a gas mixture of hydrogen and nitrogen was performed by real-time control of the densities of hydrogen (H) and nitrogen (N) radicals based on real-time measurement of the Si substrate temperature. H and N radical densities were monitored near the sidewall of the reactor by vacuum ultraviolet absorption spectroscopy, and temperature was monitored by an optical fiber-type low-coherence interferometer. On the basis of the results of surface analysis by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, etched profiles were effectively determined from the chemical component of protection layers on the sidewall of the etched pattern affected by the ratio of H/(H+N) and substrate temperature. As the etching feature evolves, the ratio of radical density should be controlled temporally to maintain vertical profiles according to the change in substrate temperature. As a result, we have successfully realized an organic film with a vertical feature. These results indicate the need for autonomous control of the etch process based on real-time information on the plasma process for the next-generation ultrafine etching.

THz-Wave Generation from GaP THz Photonic Crystal Waveguides under Difference-Frequency Mixing

GaP terahertz (THz) two-dimensional (2D) photonic crystal (PC) waveguides with line defects were fabricated using inductively-coupled plasma reactive-ion etching (ICP-RIE) in Ar/Cl2 gas chemistries. THz-wave generation from the fabricated PC waveguides was demonstrated under collinear phase-matched difference-frequency generation (DFG), using Cr:Forsterite (Cr:F) lasers as the incident source. We compared the THz-wave output characteristics of the PC waveguides with that of GaP planar waveguides. The collinear phase-matching conditions in the DFG process were satisfied for 300- and 500-μm-wide PC waveguide structures at 0.7 and 0.6 THz, respectively. The additional output peaks that appeared near the edge of the photonic band gap, around 0.5 THz, were attributed to the guiding modes in the PC waveguide; no such peaks appeared in the non-patterned ridge waveguides. These experimental results suggest that the phonon-polariton confinement in THz-PC waveguides based on the GaP crystal could be used to enhance the nonlinear optical effect for THz-wave generation.

Feature Profiles on Plasma Etch of Organic Films by a Temporal Control of Radical Densities and Real-Time Monitoring of Substrate Temperature

The precise etching of organic films with a low dielectric constant (low-k) in a dual-frequency capacitively coupled plasma etching reactor with a plasma generation of 100 MHz and an applied bias of 2 MHz employing a gas mixture of hydrogen and nitrogen was performed by real-time control of the densities of hydrogen (H) and nitrogen (N) radicals based on real-time measurement of the Si substrate temperature. H and N radical densities were monitored near the sidewall of the reactor by vacuum ultraviolet absorption spectroscopy, and temperature was monitored by an optical fiber-type low-coherence interferometer. On the basis of the results of surface analysis by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, etched profiles were effectively determined from the chemical component of protection layers on the sidewall of the etched pattern affected by the ratio of H/(H+N) and substrate temperature. As the etching feature evolves, the ratio of radical density should be controlled temporally to maintain vertical profiles according to the change in substrate temperature. As a result, we have successfully realized an organic film with a vertical feature. These results indicate the need for autonomous control of the etch process based on real-time information on the plasma process for the next-generation ultrafine etching.

Plasma etch characteristics of aluminum nitride mask layers grown by low-temperature plasma enhanced atomic layer deposition in SF6 based plasmas

The plasma etch characteristics of aluminum nitride (AlN) deposited by low-temperature, 200 °C, plasma enhanced atomic layer deposition (PEALD) was investigated for reactive ion etch (RIE) and inductively coupled plasma-reactive ion etch (ICP-RIE) systems using various mixtures of SF6 and O2 under different etch conditions. During RIE, the film exhibits good mask properties with etch rates below 10r nm/min. For ICP-RIE processes, the film exhibits exceptionally low etch rates in the subnanometer region with lower platen power. The AlN film’s removal occurred through physical mechanisms; consequently, rf power and chamber pressure were the most significant parameters in PEALD AlN film removal because the film was inert to the SFx+ and O+ chemistries. The etch experiments showed the film to be a resilient masking material. This makes it an attractive candidate for use as an etch mask in demanding SF6 based plasma etch applications, such as through-wafer etching, or when oxide films are not suitable.

Low-temperature direct bonding of glass nanofluidic chips using a two-step plasma surface activation process

Owing to the well-established nanochannel fabrication technology in 2D nanoscales with high resolution, reproducibility, and flexibility, glass is the leading, ideal, and unsubstitutable material for the fabrication of nanofluidic chips. However, high temperature (~1,000 °C) and a vacuum condition are usually required in the conventional fusion bonding process, unfortunately impeding the nanofluidic applications and even the development of the whole field of nanofluidics. We present a direct bonding of fused silica glass nanofluidic chips at low temperature, around 200 °C in ambient air, through a two-step plasma surface activation process which consists of an O(2) reactive ion etching plasma treatment followed by a nitrogen microwave radical activation. The low-temperature bonded glass nanofluidic chips not only had high bonding strength but also could work continuously without leakage during liquid introduction driven by air pressure even at 450 kPa, a very high pressure which can meet the requirements of most nanofluidic operations. Owing to the mild conditions required in the bonding process, the method has the potential to allow the integration of a range of functional elements into nanofluidic chips during manufacture, which is nearly impossible in the conventional high-temperature fusion bonding process. Therefore, we believe that the developed low-temperature bonding would be very useful and contribute to the field of nanofluidics.

Polarized light from excitonic recombination in selectively etched GaN/AlN quantum dot ensembles on Si(111)

Multiple layers of GaN/AlN quantum dot (QD) ensembles were grown by the Stranski–Krastanov method on Si(111) using molecular beam epitaxy. During the subsequent cooling from growth temperature, the thermal expansion coefficient mismatch between the Si substrate and GaN/AlN film containing the vertically stacked QDs leads to an additional biaxial tensile stress of 20–30 kbar in the III-nitride film. We have selectively modified the thermal stress in the QD layers by etching a cross-hatched pattern into the as-grown sample using inductively coupled Cl2/Ar plasma reactive ion etching. The results show that a suitable choice of stripe width from ∼2 to 10 µm and orientation along [11−20] and [1−100] can create regions of in-plane uniaxial stress that enable a selective and local control of the polarized luminescence from ensembles of QDs which were probed with cathodoluminescence. Experimental results indicate that the polarization anisotropy vanishes at high temperatures (∼300 K) with an increasing e–h pair excitation for the QDs, while the anisotropy decreases more slowly with excitation at low temperatures (∼46 K). A theoretical modelling of the effect of carrier filling on the polarization anisotropy and the excitonic transition energy was performed, as based on three-dimensional self-consistent solutions of the Schrödinger and Poisson equations using the and effective-mass methods for calculations of the e–h wavefunctions and electron and hole quasi-Fermi levels for varying levels of state filling. We attribute carrier filling and a thermal excitation of holes into higher energy QD hole states during e–h pair excitation to account for the observed gradual decrease in the polarization anisotropy with an increasing e–h pair excitation density at T = 300 K.

Control of power characteristics of ion flow in plasma-etching reactor based on beam-plasma discharge

It is shown that on the basis of the earlier revealed effect of generating the ion flow in the beam-plasma discharge from the discharge axis, a plasma processing reactor can be created for low-energy etching of semiconductor structures. The possibility of easily controlling the density and energy of ion flow by means of varying the potential of the discharge collector is demonstrated. The charge compensation of the ion flow incident on the nonconducting surface is implemented using the modulation of the potential of the substrate holder as well as the plasma-potential modulation.

A road to hydrogenating graphene by a reactive ion etching plasma

We report the hydrogenation of single and bilayer graphene by an argon-hydrogen plasma produced in a reactive ion etching (RIE) system. Electronic transport measurements in combination with Raman spectroscopy are used to link the electric mean free path to the optically extracted defect concentration. We emphasize the role of the self-bias of the graphene in suppressing the erosion of the flakes during plasma processing. We show that under the chosen plasma conditions the process does not introduce considerable damage to the graphene sheet and that hydrogenation occurs primarily due to the hydrogen ions from the plasma and not due to fragmentation of water adsorbates on the graphene surface by highly accelerated plasma electrons. For this reason the hydrogenation level can be precisely controlled. The hydrogenation process presented here can be easily implemented in any RIE plasma system.

Comparative study on dry etching of polycrystalline diamond thin films

The reactive ion etching (RIE) technique was used to etch polycrystalline diamond thin films. In this study we investigate the influence of process parameters (total pressure, rf power, gas composition) of standard capacitively coupled plasma RIE system on the etching rate of diamond films. The surface morphology of etched diamond films was characterized by Scanning Electron Microscopy and the chemical composition of the etched film part was investigated by Raman Spectroscopy.We found that the gas composition had a crucial effect on the diamond film morphology. The use of CF4 gas resulted in flatter surfaces and lateral-like etching, while the use of pure O2 gas resulted in needle-like structures. Addition of argon to the reactant precursors increased the ion bombardment, which in turn increased the formation of non-diamond phases. Next, increasing the rf power from 100 to 500 W increased the etching rate from 5.4 to 8.6 μm/h. In contrast to this observation, the rise of process pressure from 80 to 150 mTorr lowered the etching rate from 5.6 down to 3.6 μm/h.

Alternating SiCl4/O2 passivation steps with SF6 etch steps for silicon deep etching

Deep etching of silicon has been investigated in an inductively coupled plasma etch reactor using short SiCl4/O2 plasma steps to passivate the sidewalls of the etched structures. A study was first carried out to define the appropriate parameters to create, at a substrate temperature of −20 °C, a passivation layer by SiCl4/O2 plasma that resists lateral chemical etching in SF6 plasma. The most efficient passivation layer was obtained for a SiCl4/O2 gas flow ratio of 2:1, a pressure of 1 Pa and a source power of 1000 W. Ex situ analyses on a film deposited with these parameters show that it is very rich in oxygen. Silicon etching processes that alternate SF6 plasma etch steps with SiCl4/O2 plasma passivation steps were then developed. Preliminary tests in pulsed-mode conditions have enabled etch rates greater than 2 µm min−1 with selectivities higher than 220. These results show that it is possible to develop a silicon deep etching process at substrate temperatures around −20 °C that uses low SiCl4 and O2 gas flows instead of conventional fluorocarbon gases for sidewall protection.

Spatial Distributions of Electron, CF, and CF2 Radical Densities and Gas Temperature in DC-Superposed Dual-Frequency Capacitively Coupled Plasma Etch Reactor Employing Cyclic-C4F8/N2/Ar Gas

On a plasma etch reactor for a wafer of 300 mm in diameter, the spatial distributions of the absolute densities of CF and CF2 radicals, electron density (ne), and the gas temperature (Tg) of N2 were measured employing the dual frequency of negative dc voltage superposed to a very high frequency (VHF) of 60 MHz capacitively coupled plasma (DS-2f-CCP) with the cyclic- (c-)C4F8/Ar/N2 gas mixture. The dc bias was superposed on the upper electrode with a frequency of 60 MHz. The distributions of electron and radical densities were uniform within a diameter of about 260 mm, and took a monotonic decay in regions outside a diameter of 260 mm on the reactor for 300 mm wafers in the reactor. It was found that only CF2 density at the radial position between 150 and 180 mm, corresponding to the position of the Si focus ring, dropped, while CF density took a uniform distribution over a diameter of 260 mm. Additionally, at this position, the rotational temperature of N2 gas increased to be 100 K larger than that at the center position. CF2 radical density was markedly affected by the modified surface loss probability of the material owing to coupling with surface temperature.

Spatial Distributions of Electron, CF, and CF2Radical Densities and Gas Temperature in DC-Superposed Dual-Frequency Capacitively Coupled Plasma Etch Reactor Employing Cyclic-C4F8/N2/Ar Gas

Spatial Distributions of Electron, CF, and CF₂Radical Densities and Gas Temperature in DC-Superposed Dual-Frequency Capacitively Coupled Plasma Etch Reactor Employing Cyclic-C₄F₈/N₂/Ar Gas

Investigation on etch characteristics of MgO thin films using a HBr/Ar plasma

Etch characteristics of MgO thin films were investigated using an inductively coupled plasma reactive ion etcher in a HBr/Ar plasma. As the concentration of HBr gas increased, the etch rate of MgO thin films gradually decreased, but the etch rate of Ti hard mask showed initial decrease and then increased with increasing HBr concentration. The etch profile of MgO films was improved with increasing HBr concentration and a high degree of anisotropy in etch profile was achieved at 30% HBr/Ar gas. Based on the etch characteristics and surface analysis by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, it can be concluded that the etch mechanism of MgO thin films in a HBr/Ar gas does not follow the reactive ion etch mechanism but the sputter etching mechanism with the assistance of chemical reactions on the film surfaces.

Wet Etching and Surface Analysis of Chemically Treated InGaN Films

This paper discusses the performance of different wet chemical etchants on InGaN. It is shown that certain etchants can be used to chemically etch and remove appreciable amounts of InGaN even though the etch rate is not as high as observed for other III-V materials. The performance of etchants studied here were (i) two different ratios of HF, HNO3, (ii) cyclic usage of NH4OH followed by HCl, (iii) hot H2SO4 and H3PO4 mixture, and (iv) conc. NH4OH. The etched surfaces have then been analyzed by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Different etch residues were observed on the top surface. These results suggest an alternative to reactive plasma etching or photo-enhanced electrochemical etching of InGaN type materials. Based on the observed performance of the etchants studied, it was also possible to segregate the surface cleaning protocols and etchants.

ICP-RIE etching of self-aligned InP based HBTs with Cl 2/N 2 chemistry

We report on a simple Inductively Coupled Plasma-Reactive Ion Etching (ICP-RIE) process with Cl 2/N 2 chemistry to process InP based, self-aligned HBTs with sub-micron emitters. Since the layer to be etched is in the range of 150 nm (the thickness of emitter cap and emitter layers), a low etch rate is beneficial. On the other hand, it is also necessary to use chemistries without hydrogen to prevent any possible hydrogen passivation. Therefore, in this work, Cl 2/N 2 chemistry is selected and a plasma process providing an etch rate of 120 nm/min is optimized. Not only the etch rate but also the electrical and the surface quality of the wafers are examined. It has been illustrated that the etch rate of the optimized process is uniform over the wafer and it is reproducible. In addition to that, it has been shown with electrical measurements that there is no degradation in the material quality. To test the optimized process, sub-micron HBTs are fabricated and the RF measurements have shown an f max of 340 GHz which make them to be used in high speed communication systems. In addition to that, lower and controlled under etch gives better current gain distribution over the wafer leading better device models and resulting in better yield in MMICs.

Annealing Temperature-Dependent Interfacial Behavior of Sequentially Plasma-Activated Silicon Bonded Wafers

The annealing effects of voids, amorphous layer, and bonding strength in the sequentially plasma-activated silicon/silicon bonded interface were investigated. The interfacial silanol groups and water were condensed and removed, respectively, below and above annealing at 150°C. About 400°C, the bonding strength was reduced because of the increased void density associated with the plasma-induced surface defects and the increased thickness of interfacial silicon oxide. The increase of the interfacial thickness layer after annealing was confirmed by high-resolution transmission electron microscope and detected as silicon oxide using the electron energy loss spectroscopy. The surface roughness and contact angle were measured to explain the influence of plasma processing parameters on the interfacial behavior after annealing. While the water contact angle increased with the increase in the O <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> reactive ion etching (RIE) time, the surface roughness was initially decreased and then increased. The surface activation with 400-W O <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> RIE plasma induced defect sites such as nanopores and craters. This study indicates that the O <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> RIE plasma time and power have to be as low as possible to reduce surface roughness and defects but have to be high enough to properly activate the surface with enough surface energy to achieve high quality of Si/Si interface.

Low resistivity contacts to plasma etched Mg-doped GaN using very low power inductively coupled plasma etching

The electrical characteristics of contacts to p-type GaN etched using inductively coupled plasma-reactive ion etching at low radio-frequency (RF) and inductively coupled plasma (ICP) powers were studied via current–voltage characteristics and transfer length method analysis. Although the quality of ohmic contacts to p-GaN is generally degraded by plasma etching, the results indicate that the specific contact resistance improves significantly both for the same etch depth and for the same etch time when the power is reduced from RF/ICP power of 75/150W to very low RF/ICP power of 20/40W. The use of a two step approach using a combination of higher power (75/150W) followed by very low power (20/40W) etches on the same sample also show improvement compared to the standard etch. Finally, etching with low power to a shallow etch depth of 60nm achieved a very low specific contact resistance of 0.035Ωcm2, while a deeper etch of more than 500nm resulted in a contact resistance of 0.153Ωcm2, both lower than any previously published values for ohmic contacts made to etched p-GaN.

Reactive ion etching of tellurite and chalcogenide waveguides using hydrogen, methane, and argon

The authors report in detail on the reactive plasma etching properties of tellurium and demonstrate a high quality etching process using hydrogen, methane, and argon. Very low loss planar ridge waveguides are demonstrated. Optical losses in tellurium dioxide waveguides below 0.1 dB/cm in most of the near infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum and at 1550 nm have been achieved—the lowest ever reported by more than an order of magnitude and clearly suitable for planar integrated devices. The etch process is also shown to be suitable for chalcogenide glasses which may be of importance in applications such as phase change memory devices and nonlinear integrated optics.

Characteristics of emission polarization in a-plane nanorods embedded with InGaN/GaN multiple quantum wells

Nonpolar (a-plane) GaN nanorod arrays with embedded InxGa1−xN/GaN (x=0.09, 0.14, 0.24, and 0.30) multiple quantum wells (MQWs) grown on r-plane sapphire have been fabricated successfully by self-assembled Ni nanomasks and subsequent inductively coupled plasma reactive-ion etching. After nanorod fabrications, the polarization ratio of the emission from MQWs with lower indium composition (x=0.09 and 0.14) slightly decreases but apparently increases by at most 79% for the samples with higher indium composition (x=0.24 and 0.30). Competition between the effect of multiple scattering, strain relaxation and reduction in localized centers, expected in a-plane MQW samples, are attributed to the variations in the polarization ratios after the nanorod formation.