“…Halogen chemistries were used in conjunction with Ar or the aforementioned H 2 , while incorporation of numerous organics, such as CH 4 , CH 3 OH, and CH 3 COOH, were also employed but suffered from undesirable carbon deposition or oxidation caused from methanol and acetic acid fragmentation. [45][46][47][48] None of the chemistries reported exhibits etch rates higher than 20-30 nm/min, with moderate selectivity to Ti or TiN masks.…”
Building upon the depth and breadth of Harold Winters's work, this paper pays tribute to his pioneering contribution in the field of plasma etching of metals, and how that knowledge base helps guide the fundamental research in these areas. The fundamental understanding of the plasma–surface interactions during metal etch is key to achieve desirable etch efficacy and selectivity at the atomic scale. This paper presents a generalized methodology, combining thermodynamic assessment and kinetic verification of surface reactions, using copper, magnetic metals, and noble metals as examples, in an effort to demonstrate the applicability of this strategy in tailoring plasma–surface interactions at the atomic scale for a wide range of materials.
“…Halogen chemistries were used in conjunction with Ar or the aforementioned H 2 , while incorporation of numerous organics, such as CH 4 , CH 3 OH, and CH 3 COOH, were also employed but suffered from undesirable carbon deposition or oxidation caused from methanol and acetic acid fragmentation. [45][46][47][48] None of the chemistries reported exhibits etch rates higher than 20-30 nm/min, with moderate selectivity to Ti or TiN masks.…”
Building upon the depth and breadth of Harold Winters's work, this paper pays tribute to his pioneering contribution in the field of plasma etching of metals, and how that knowledge base helps guide the fundamental research in these areas. The fundamental understanding of the plasma–surface interactions during metal etch is key to achieve desirable etch efficacy and selectivity at the atomic scale. This paper presents a generalized methodology, combining thermodynamic assessment and kinetic verification of surface reactions, using copper, magnetic metals, and noble metals as examples, in an effort to demonstrate the applicability of this strategy in tailoring plasma–surface interactions at the atomic scale for a wide range of materials.
“…However, the etching of magnetic films with halogen gases tends to form non-volatile corrosive etch byproducts including sidewall redeposition, and which causes a tapered profile, corrosion, and electrical short [5,6]. To solve these issues, RIE using C, H, O-based gases such as CH 3 COOH/Ar, CH 3 OH, CO/NH 3 , etc have been investigated owing to noncorrosive property of etching and the formation of potentially volatile etch compounds [5][6][7][8]. However, oxygen in the gas mixture could induce chemical damages on the MTJ material surface during the etching and also could form a thin oxide layer on the patterned sidewall of MTJ materials, which reduces the performance of the device [9,10].…”
Magnetic tunneling junction (MTJ) materials such as CoFeB, Co, Pt, MgO, and the hard mask material such as W and TiN were etched with a reactive ion beam etching (RIBE) system using H2/NH3. By using gas mixtures of H2 and NH3, especially with the H2/NH3( 2:1) ratio, higher etch rates of MTJ related materials and higher etch selectivities over mask materials (>30) could be observed compared to those etching using pure H2( no etching) and NH3. In addition, no significant chemical and physical damages were observed on etched magnetic materials surfaces and, for CoPt and MTJ nanoscale patterns etched by the H2/NH3( 2:1) ion beam, highly anisotropic etch profiles >83° with no sidewall redeposition could be observed. The higher etch rates of magnetic materials such as CoFeB by the H2/NH3( 2:1) ion beam compared to those by H2 ion beam or NH3 ion beam are believed to be related to the formation of volatile metal hydrides (MH, M = Co, Fe, etc) through the reduction of M-NHx( x = 1 ∼ 3) formed in the CoFeB surface by the exposure to NH3 ion beam. It is believed that the H2/NH3 RIBE is a suitable technique in the etching of MTJ materials for the next generation nanoscale spin transfer torque magnetic random access memory (STT-MRAM) devices.
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