Ge, B, P-doped silica glass films are widely used as optical waveguides because of their low losses and inherent compatibility with silica optical fibers. These films were etched by ICP !inductively coupled plasma" with chrome etch masks, which were patterned by reactive ion etching !RIE" using chlorine-based gases. In some cases, the etched surfaces of silica glass were very rough !root-mean s...

GaAs etch characteristics like etch rate, etch profile sidewall angle, etch surface morphology and selectivity are studied as a function of Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP) power and Cl2/BCl3 flow rate ratio in ICP at low pressure (<15mTorr) and low RF bias power (<100W) regime to achieve moderate GaAs etch rate with an-isotropic profiles and smooth surface morphology. The low pressure regime e...

In this article the effects of process parameters of CHF31N2 plasma etching chemistry ~rf power 50–70 W, pressure 22.5–52.5 mTorr, and N2 content 0%–95%! and mask materials ~photoresist, aluminum, and silicon nitride! on the etching selectivity of silicon nitride over polysilicon are investigated. It was found that the selectivity increased with the N2 content in the range of 0%–85% and then de...