Batch Fabrication of Silicon Nanometer Tip Using Isotropic Inductively Coupled Plasma Etching

Lihao Wang; Meijie Liu; Junyuan Zhao; Jicong Zhao; Yinfang Zhu; Jinling Yang; Fuhua Yang

doi:10.3390/mi11070638

Batch Fabrication of Silicon Nanometer Tip Using Isotropic Inductively Coupled Plasma Etching

Micromachines (Basel). 2020 Jun 29;11(7):638. doi: 10.3390/mi11070638.

Authors

Lihao Wang^{1

2

3}, Meijie Liu^{1

2

3}, Junyuan Zhao^{1

2

3}, Jicong Zhao^{4

3}, Yinfang Zhu^{1

2

3}, Jinling Yang^{1

2

3}, Fuhua Yang^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100083, China.
² Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Transducer Technology, Shanghai 200050, China.
⁴ Jiangsu Key Laboratory of ASIC Design, Nantong University, Nantong 226019, China.

Abstract

This work reports a batch fabrication process for silicon nanometer tip based on isotropic inductively coupled plasma (ICP) etching technology. The silicon tips with nanometer apex and small surface roughness are produced at wafer-level with good etching homogeneity and repeatability. An ICP etching routine is developed to make silicon tips with apex radius less than 5 nm, aspect ratio greater than 5 at a tip height of 200 nm, and tip height more than 10 μm, and high fabrication yield is achieved by mask compensation and precisely controlling lateral etch depth, which is significant for large-scale manufacturing.

Keywords: high aspect ratio; inductively coupled plasma etching; nanometer tip; small apex.

Abstract

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