Dry Etching of Electronic Oxides, Polymers, and Semiconductors

Abstract

A review is given of commonly used plasma etching techniques and typical plasma chemistries for patterning electronic oxides, such as SiO 2 , HfO 2 , MgO, Sc 2 O 3 , and ZnO, polymers, and several important semiconductors (Si, GaAs, and InP). Issues that affect the reproducibility and manufacturability of etching processes, such as loading effects, endpoint detection, and etch selectivity, are also discussed. Finally, disruption to the etched surface in the form of polymer deposition, plasma residues, ion-induced displacement damage, or preferential loss of one of the lattice elements during the etch process are covered. SEM micrograph of features etched into a ZnMgO/ZnO structure using a BCl 3 /Cl 2 /Ar ICP plasma.

Plasma‐Assisted Approaches in Inorganic Nanostructure Fabrication

“…[1] In less than 100 years, plasma and plasma-related technologies have already become an indispensible part for the modern sciences and technologies that are of fundamental importance for the human being, including energy sciences, [2,3] information technologies, [4,5] life and medical science, [6][7][8] environmental sciences, [9][10][11][12][13] and materials sciences. [11][12][13][14] Concerning material preparation and processing, plasma techniques have found important applications in thin-film deposition, [15][16][17][18] etching, [4,5,14,19] and surface modifications. [6,12,20] Particularly, microstructure fabrication based on plasma etching plays a central role in microelectronics.…”

Bio-Inspired Photonic Structures: Prototypes, Fabrications and Devices

“…During the fabrication duration, the colloidal spheres are etched by RIE gradually firstly, leading to a reduced transverse cross section of the spheres and thus an increasing exposure of the substrate. Attributed to the features of RIE, the etching rates of the apex and the junction parts of the spheres are not uniform, resulting in the etching morphology modification from frustum to cone arrays on the substrate finally [24].…”

Hot punching of high-aspect-ratio 3D polymeric microstructures for drug delivery

“…Some methods to overcome this limitation and remove the residual layer have been introduced in the past including reactive ion etching or laser machining but these processes might affect the material properties of the biopolymer. 16,17 Kuduva-Raman-Thanumoorthy et al describe a punching process after hot embossing to get discrete threedimensional (3D) structures using a special set-up. 18 Heckele et al introduced bilayer embossing with a device layer on a sacrificial layer.…”