Anisotropic vapor HF etching of silicon dioxide for Si microstructure release
Journal article, 2012

Damages are created in a sacrificial layer of silicon-dioxide by ion implantation to enhance the etch rate of silicon-dioxide in liquid and vapor phase hydrofluoric acid. The etch rate ratio between implanted and unimplanted silicon-dioxide is more than 150 in vapor hydrofluoric acid (VHF). This feature is of interest to greatly reduce the underetch of microelectromechanical systems anchors. Based on the experimentally extracted etch rate of unimplanted and implanted silicon-dioxide, the patterning of the sacrificial layer can be predicted by simulation.

Vapor phase hydrofluoric acid release

Implantation of silicon oxide

Wet release

damage

mems fabrication

ion-implantation

photoresist sacrificial layer

Author

V. Passi

Universite catholique de Louvain

Ulf Södervall

Chalmers, Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2), Nanofabrication Laboratory

Bengt Nilsson

Chalmers, Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2), Nanofabrication Laboratory

Göran Petersson

Chalmers, Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2), Nanofabrication Laboratory

Mats Hagberg

Chalmers, Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2), Nanofabrication Laboratory

C. Krzeminski

IEMN Institut d'Electronique de Microelectronique et de Nanotechnologie

E. Dubois

IEMN Institut d'Electronique de Microelectronique et de Nanotechnologie

B. Du Bois

Interuniversity Micro-Electronics Center at Leuven

J. P. Raskin

Universite catholique de Louvain

Microelectronic Engineering

0167-9317 (ISSN)

Vol. 95 83-89

Subject Categories

Physical Sciences

DOI

10.1016/j.mee.2012.01.005

More information

Latest update

3/8/2018 1