Silicon Carbide Etching Using Chlorine Trifluoride Gas

Abstract

The etch rate, chemical reactions and etched surface of -silicon carbide are studied in detail using chlorine trifluoride gas. The etch rate is greater than 10 mm min À1 at 723 K with a flow rate of 0.1 ' min À1 at atmospheric pressure in a horizontal reactor. The maximum etch rate at a substrate temperature of 773 K is 40 mm min À1 with a flow rate of 0.25 ' min À1 . The steplike pattern that initially exists on the -silicon carbide surface tends to be smoothed; the root-mean-square surface roughness decreases from its initial value of 5 mm to 1 mm within 15 min; this minimum value is maintained for more than 15 min. Therefore, chlorine trifluoride gas is considered to have a large etch rate for -silicon carbide associated with making a rough surface smooth.

4H Silicon Carbide Etching Using Chlorine Trifluoride Gas

“…This reactor has a small cross section above the substrate in order to achieve a very high consumption efficiency of the chlorine trifluoride gas. The height and the width of the quartz chamber are 10mm and 40mm, respectively, similar to our previous studies [1,2].…”

“…The Si-face etch rate becomes greater than 7 um/min and maintains its value at substrate temperatures greater than 773 K in the reactor used in this study. Although the etch rate at the chlorine trifluoride gas flow rate of 200 sccm was not measured at the lower temperatures, the trend in the flat etch rate at the higher temperatures and the small etch rate at the lower temperatures is considered to be the same as that at 100 sccm and that for the polycrystalline 3C-SiC [1,2]. Fig.…”

Polycrystalline silicon carbide film deposition using monomethylsilane and hydrogen chloride gases

“…Water vapor in the hydrogen gas is removed by passing the gas through a liquid nitrogen trap (77 K) at the entrance of the reactor. After removing the substrate from the reactor, the quartz chamber is cleaned using 10% chlorine trifluoride gas in ambient nitrogen at 673-773 K for 1 min at atmospheric pressure, which is an application of the silicon carbide etching technique using chlorine trifluoride gas [23]. The average thickness of the silicon carbide film is evaluated from the increase in the substrate weight.…”

Formation and Removal of Carbon Film on Silicon Carbide Surface Using Chlorine Trifluoride Gas

“…10 and 11. In our previous studies 15 using the quadrupole mass spectrometry, the gaseous byproducts caused by the etching of silicon carbide by chlorine trifluoride gas were silicon tetrafluoride and carbon tetrafluoride. Additionally, fluorine (F 2 ) was not detected.…”