The Effects of Chemical (isotropic) and Anisotropic Etching Processes on the Roughening of Nanocomposite Substrates

Abstract

Simulation results of roughening of nanocomposite materials during both isotropic and anisotropic etching processes based on the level set method are presented. It is clearly shown that the presence of two phases with different etching rates affects the development of surface roughness and that some roughness characteristics obey simple scaling laws. In addition, certain scaling laws that describe the time dependence of the root mean square (rms) roughness w for various etching processes and different characteristics of the nanocomposite materials are determined.

A hybrid modeling framework for the investigation of surface roughening of polymers during oxygen plasma etching

“…Profile evolution simulators have been used to predict the evolution and explore origins of the surface roughness during plasma etching. Cell-based methods [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22], molecular dynamics (MD) simulations [23][24][25] and the level set method [26][27][28][29][30][31] have been used to examine the evolution of surface roughness.…”

“…The evolving profile or surface are determined as the zero contour of the level set function. By using the level set method, Radjenović et al [26][27][28][29] studied the evolution of surface roughness (roughening or smoothing) during isotropic, anisotropic etching and physical sputtering of homogeneous and nonhomogeneous films. In our previous works [30,31], the level set method was used to explore the evolution of a rough polymeric substrate during physical sputtering by argon ions, taking into account the effects of surface charging, ion reflection and secondary electronelectron emission.…”

A hybrid modeling framework for simulating plasma-surface interactions of rough polymeric substrates

“…Profile evolution simulators have been used to predict the evolution and explore origins of the surface roughness during plasma etching: Cell-based methods [52,[85][86][87][88][89][90][91][92][93], molecular dynamics simulations [19,94,95] and the level set method [82,83,[96][97][98][99][100] have been encompassed for the evolution of surface roughness.…”

“…It relies on the concept of the implicit function; the evolving profile or surface is determined as the zero contour of the level set function. By using the level set method, Radjenović et al [96][97][98][99] studied the evolution of surface roughness (roughening or smoothing) during isotropic, anisotropic etching and physical sputtering of homogeneous and nonhomogeneous films. A more extensive review in recent developments in theoretical/numerical and experimental studies of the formation and evolution of surface roughness can be found elsewhere [52].…”