Plasma-Assisted Etching

Plasma-assisted etching is an essential part of the microstructuring process in fabrication of integrated semiconductor circuits and micromechanic devices. Thereby structures down to the sub-μm-range are etched into layers of isolators, semiconductors, metals and metal-semiconductor-compounds. Such etch processes must show a high degree of anisotropy and a high selectivity in respect to the etch mask and the substrate. These demands can be satisfied by a chemical etch reaction which is induced by impinging energetic particles such as ions, electrons or photons. In the following article the properties of plasma-assisted etching will be described and applications in the microsystem technology will be discussed.