Maskless Etching of AN Using Focused Ion Beam

Abstract

Maskless submicron etching of AN has been performed using ion beam assisted etching (IBAE) technique. 35 keV Ga focused ion beam and chlorine gas was used for the etching. Al target was prepared by evaporation on Si substrate. When the pressure of chlorine gas ambient was varied from 0 to 32 mTorr, the etching rate of Al exhibited a maximum value which was 4.3×10-5cm3·mA-1·min-1 at a pressure of 5 mTorr. This value was about 10 times larger than that of physical sputter etching. Chlorine contamination was found to be below detection limit by Auger analysis.

Focused ion beam applications to solid state devices

“…The rate enhancement ranges from 10-to 100-fold for various combinations of materials and etchant gases. The absence of redeposition effects is demonstrated in figure 10, which shows a deep groove formed with high aspect ratio by a single scanning of a 35 keV Ga + FIB [64].…”

“…Source gas Application Physical sputter etching Si, GaAs, InP (25 keV Ga + ) [50,51] Micromachine [52,53] Device transportation [52] Si MOS device (30 keV Ga + ) [54][55][56][57][58] Failure analysis [54,56] Resist (30 keV Ga + ) [59] Microsectioning [54][55][56]59] TEM specimen preparation [57,58] MoSi 2 , Cr (42 keV Ga + ) [60] Photomask repair [60] COG (25 keV Ga + ) [61] Cr (0.5 keV Ga + ) [62] Phase-shift mask repair [61,62] Au (100 keV Ga + ) [63] X-ray mask repair [63] Chemical assisted etching Si (5,20,35 keV Ga + ) [64,65] Cl 2…”

Review Article: Advanced nanoscale patterning and material synthesis with gas field helium and neon ion beams

“…FIBIE has been demonstrated with a number of primary ion beams; however, Ga þ has historically been the most widespread choice. Some of the common precursor gases used to chemically aid in material removal during FIBIE include Cl 2 , 115 …”