Low-power, low-pressure reactive-ion etching process for silicon etching with vertical and smooth walls for mechanobiology application

Mohammed Ashraf; Sree V. Sundararajan; Gianluca Grenci

doi:10.1117/1.JMM.16.3.034501

10 July 2017 Low-power, low-pressure reactive-ion etching process for silicon etching with vertical and smooth walls for mechanobiology application

Mohammed Ashraf, Sree V. Sundararajan, Gianluca Grenci

Author Affiliations +

Journal of Micro/Nanolithography, MEMS, and MOEMS, Vol. 16, Issue 3, 034501 (July 2017). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JMM.16.3.034501

Abstract

We report our findings in developing a low-power etching recipe using a newly acquired reactive-ion etching (RIE) tool (RIE-10NR, Samco, Japan), with the aim of achieving smooth and vertical sidewalls in micropatterned silicon substrate. We used a combination of CF₄, SF₆, and O₂ gases, which at low power (30 W) and low pressure (2 Pa) allowed for vertical silicon etching (aspect ratio ∼2). We used photoresist and silicon oxide as the etching masks. As it is a continuous etching process, scalloping effects were not present, which is contrary to the process done with an inductively coupled plasma-based “Bosch” approach. We also show a successful use of these microstructures as master mold in soft-lithographic techniques for producing devices in elastomeric materials that have applications in mechanobiology. To the best of our knowledge, the recipe we present here has the lowest combination of power and pressure for etching silicon with vertical profile using a standard, parallel plates RIE tool.

CC BY: © The Authors. Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. Distribution or reproduction of this work in whole or in part requires full attribution of the original publication, including its DOI.

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Mohammed Ashraf, Sree V. Sundararajan, and Gianluca Grenci "Low-power, low-pressure reactive-ion etching process for silicon etching with vertical and smooth walls for mechanobiology application," Journal of Micro/Nanolithography, MEMS, and MOEMS 16(3), 034501 (10 July 2017). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JMM.16.3.034501

Received: 2 March 2017; Accepted: 15 June 2017; Published: 10 July 2017

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Cited by 12 scholarly publications.

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KEYWORDS

Reactive ion etching

Etching

Silicon

Gases

Oxides

Oxygen

Photoresist materials

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