Plasma Etching of Silicon at a High Flow and a High Pressure of NF3 in Reactive Ion Etching

• Published in: Journal of the Korean Physical Society Vol. 74; no. 12; pp. 1135 - 1139
• Main Authors: Kwon, Hee-Tae, Kim, Woo-Jae, Shin, Gi-Won, Lee, Hwan-Hee, Lee, Tae-Hyun, Kang, Min-Ho, Kwon, Gi-Chung
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Seoul The Korean Physical Society 01-06-2019; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Emission analysis; Emission spectroscopy; Flow velocity; Fluorine; Gas analyzers; Ion currents; Ion etching; Mathematical and Computational Physics; Nitrogen fluorides; Optical emission spectroscopy; Particle and Nuclear Physics; Physics; Physics and Astronomy; Plasma etching; Reactive ion etching; Residual gas; Silicon; Spectrum analysis; Theoretical; NF; Optical emission spectroscopy; Residence time; plasma; Silicon etching; Residual gas analyzer
• ISSN: 0374-4884; 1976-8524
• DOI: 10.3938/jkps.74.1135

Capacitively coupled plasma reactive ion etching of silicon by injecting nitrogen trifluoride (NF
3
) gas was conducted, and the etching process was studied with a residual gas analyzer and an optical emission spectroscopy. During the etching of silicon by the NF
3
plasma, the currents of F
+
and SiF
+
3
ions were obtained from the residual gas analyzer. At the same time, the line intensity of fluorine was measured using optical emission spectroscopy. The ion currents of F
+
and SiF
+
3
and the line intensity of fluorine were highest for etching at high pressure. With the results of this study, the general characteristics of reactive ion etching of silicon by using NF
3
plasma were confirmed. In addition, by simply changing the flow rate of NF
3
, a high NF
3
flow rate was found to result in a high etch rate because of the reduced residence time.