A review of nitrogen trifluoride for dry etching in microelectronics processing

Nitrogen Trifluoride-Based Fluoride- Volatility Separations Process: Initial Studies

“…A potential alternative fluorinating reagent nitrogen trifluoride (NF 3 ) is currently used on an industrial scale to etch and clean microelectronic devices (Golja et al 1985;Golja et al 1983;Langan 1998;Kastenmeier 2000). Nitrogen trifluoride is not corrosive and does not react with moisture, acids, or bases at room temperature, is thermally stable to relatively high temperatures, and also is insensitive to shock to pressures above 100,000 psi (Anderson et al 1977).…”

Ion energy distributions and optical emission spectra in NF3-based process chamber cleaning plasmas

“…Compared with fluorocarbon-based plasmas, NF 3 offers advantages of shorter atmospheric lifetime, avoidance of fluorocarbon contamination residues, maximized PECVD tool availability resulting from faster etch rates for removal of silicon dioxide and silicon nitride residues on the interior surfaces of the tools, and further downstream cleaning in the reactor as a result of longer radical lifetimes. [1][2][3][4] These advantages of NF 3 -based cleaning discharges can be fully realized only if ion bombardment damage to chamber interior components can be simultaneously minimized. Diluent or buffer gases are commonly used to optimize both fluorocarbon-or NF 3 -based chamber cleaning process plasmas.…”

Dry texturing of mc‐Si wafers

“…A low-cost, large area, random, mask-less texturing scheme is expected to significantly impact terrestrial PV technology and reduce the amount of wet-chemical waste. We propose an approach based on randomly etched mc-Si by RIE system using NF 3 instead of SF 6 or CF 4 to reduce the detrimental formation of carbonaceous or sulfurous contamination at the silicon surface, which results in a surface recombination. To obtain a fast process we have investigated the effect of the chemical etching due to the NF 3 radicals and the ion bombardment induced by Ar.…”

“…We propose an approach based on randomly etched Si using RIE by using NF 3 instead of SF 6 or CF 4 to avoid unwanted formation of sulfurous or carbonaceous compounds at the Si surface, which enhance the surface recombination [5]. It has been reported in literature that products of NF 3 discharge can etch Si and SiO 2 , 1-2 orders of magnitude faster than can those of similar discharge in CF 4 .…”

“…It has been reported in literature that products of NF 3 discharge can etch Si and SiO 2 , 1-2 orders of magnitude faster than can those of similar discharge in CF 4 . It has suggested that the discharge is much more effective at dis-sociating NF 3 than CF 4 , apparently due to the lower bond strength of NF 3 molecule than CF 4 molecular bonding and lower dissociation threshold energy too [6]. In this way NF 3 has advantages over other fluorinated gases.…”