US EPA

6588969 

Journal Article 

ATOMIC LAYER CONTROLLED DIGITAL ETCHING OF SILICON 

Sakaue, H; Iseda, S; Asami, K; Yamamoto, J; Hirose, M; Horiike, Y; , 

1990 

Yes 

Japanese Journal of Applied Physics
ISSN: 0021-4922
EISSN: 1347-4065 

JAPAN J APPLIED PHYSICS 

MINATO-KU TOKYO 

29 

11 

2648-2652 

10.1143/JJAP.29.2648 

WOS:A1990EN83000067 

Layer-by-layer etching of silicon on atomic scale has been achieved by repeating the reaction cycles of fluorine (F) atom adsorption on a cooled Si surface and subsequent Ar+ ion (congruent-to 20 eV) irradiation which induces fluorine/Si surface reactions. The digital etch rate first increases and reaches a plateau region with an increase of Ar+ ion irradiation time. For the case of CF4/O2 downstream plasma as a fluorine source, CF(x) radical accumulation appears to be a self-limiting stop of the F/Si reaction to promote atomic layer etching, while F atoms produced by a remote NF3 plasma or an F2/95%He discharge also cause similar atomic layer etching in which the amount of physiosorbed fluorine molecules on Si surfaces controls the etch rate. The etching in the plateau region exhibits no microloading effect because the fluorine coverage is independent of pattern size. Anisotropic etching of Si with a 20 nm PMMA mask pattern and an aspect ratio of 5 is attained. 

ETCHING; REACTION MECHANISM; FLUORINE; LAYER-BY-LAYER; ATOMIC LAYER; MICROLOADING; ADSORPTION; LOW ENERGY 

3RD ( 2ND INTERNATIONAL ) MICROPROCESS CONF ( MPC 90 ) 

MAKUHARI, JAPAN