AVS 45th International Symposium
    Magnetic Interfaces and Nanostructures Technical Group Wednesday Sessions
       Session MI+EM-WeM

Paper MI+EM-WeM10
Effect of Noble Gas Addition (He,Ar,Xe) on Cl@sub 2@-Based Etching of NiFe and NiFeCo

Wednesday, November 4, 1998, 11:20 am, Room 324/325

Session: Spin-dependent Devices: Technology and Processing
Presenter: K.B. Jung, University of Florida, Gainesville
Authors: K.B. Jung, University of Florida, Gainesville
H. Cho, University of Florida, Gainesville
Y-.B. Hahn, University of Florida, Gainesville
E.S. Lambers, University of Florida, Gainesville
Y.D. Park, University of Florida, Gainesville
S.J. Pearton, University of Florida, Gainesville
J.R. Childress, IBM Almaden Research Center
M. Jenson, Honeywell, Inc.
A.T. Hurst, Jr., Honeywell, Inc.
Correspondent: Click to Email
The mechanism for high rate dry etching of NiFe, NiFeCo and other components of multilayer magnetic thin film devices such as read/write heads and magnetic random access memories depends on formation of chlorinated etch products, and their efficient desorption by ion-assisted sputtering. A systematic study of the dependence of noble gas species (He, Ar, Xe) additive to high-density Inductively Coupled Plasma Cl@sub 2@ discharges has been performed. The etch rates of the NiFe and NiFeCo increase in direct proportion to the atomic weight of the noble gas species, which is the dominant factor controlling etch product desorption. Increasing the weight of the additive also leads to a decrease in residual chlorine on the etched surface, as determined by Auger Electron Spectroscopy. The effect of altering the noble gas species on etch selectivity over common mask materials (SiO@sub 2@, SiN@sub X@ and photoresist) has also been studied. Facetting of the mask edges is a particular problem with Cl@sub 2@/Xe discharges.