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PVD, CVD and Etch Systems

PVD, CVD and Etch Systems

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Real-world applications of Moorfield products in science

Fluorine Chemistry Based Etching of h-BN, SiO2 and Si.

The Moorfield nanoETCH system with fluorine-chemistry is capable of etching h-BN, SiO2 and Si.

This application note demonstrates the effectiveness of fluorine-chemistry etchant gases SF6 and CHF3 for etching of h-BN (sidewalls and bulk), SiO2 and Si. All of this is possible with the compact benchtop system.

h-BN Sidewalls

A pit was etched into a multi-layer stack of h-BN with SF6 as the etchant gas and a Soft Etching approach, just 7–8 layers of material were removed during a 2 minute process. Residual roughness at the bottom of the pit was just 1 atomic layer.

Screenshot-2022-05-23-at-12.54.06

TEM images of h-BN layers removed using Soft Etching with SF6 etchant gas.Data courtesy of NANOMADE, DTU.

h-BN Bulk Etching

By changing conditions, much higher etch rates were possible. Users were able to achieve an etch depth of 130 nm at a rate of 1.1 nm/s.

SiO2 & Si Etching

A thermally oxidised Si wafer was etched using a nanoETCH tool using SF6 as etchant gas. An ultra-low etch rate of ~1.3 Å/s was obtained, allowing for excellent control.

A customer working on HR stack layers uses the nanoETCH to remove 25nm of Si in 20 seconds using N2 + SF6.