AVS 45th International Symposium
    Plasma Science and Technology Division Monday Sessions
       Session PS-MoP

Paper PS-MoP11
Oxide Etch Characteristics of Inductively Coupled Plasmas Using Multipole Magnets for the Fabrication of Optical Waveguides

Monday, November 2, 1998, 5:30 pm, Room Hall A

Session: Plasma Science and Technology Poster Session
Presenter: K.J. An, SungKyunKwan University, Korea
Authors: K.J. An, SungKyunKwan University, Korea
D.H. Lee, SungKyunKwan University, Korea
G.B. Yoo, SungKyunKwan University, Korea
J.H. Joo, Kunsan National University, Korea
G.Y. Yeom, SungKyunKwan University, Korea
Correspondent: Click to Email
Dry etching of silicon oxide is one of the key steps not only in the silicon integrated circuit fabrication but also in other applications such as the fabrication of optical waveguides. In case of the fabrication of optical waveguides, dry etching characteristics of anisotropic etch profile, low sidewall roughness to reduce scattering loss, and high SiO@sub 2@ etch rates with high etch selectivities over mask materials easily to etch the films over 10µm thick are required In this study, glass etch characteristics of inductively coupled plasmas using multipole magnets were investigated. Various fluorocarbon gases and their combinations were used as etch gases. The10µm thick glass layer on silicon wafers used in this experiment was grown by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition. As the etch mask material, 3000Å thick Cr patterned using an Ar ion beam etching technique was used. To investigate the effects of multipole magnets on the characteristics of the plasmas and etch properties, ion density and F radical intensity were measured with and without the magnets along with etch rates, etch selectivities, and etch profiles. Also, we have analyzed the etched glass surface by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy(XPS) to investigate the change of stoichiometry and binding states of the surface materials. When the glass was etched, the significant increase of etch rate, the increase of etch uniformity, and changes in the surface composition were obtained with the magnets together with the increase of ion densities and radicals. Using CF@sub 4@, 1000watts of inductive power, 5mTorr of operation pressure, -100Volts of dc-self bias voltage, and with the magnets glass etch selectivity over Cr higher than 30 and glass etch rate over 4500Å/min with anisotropic etch profiles and smooth sidewalls of 10µm thick etched glass waveguides could be obtained.