AVS 49th International Symposium
    Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) Thursday Sessions
       Session MM-ThA

Paper MM-ThA5
Transformer Coupled Plasma Etching of Polycrystalline 3C-SiC Films for MEMS Applications

Thursday, November 7, 2002, 3:20 pm, Room C-210

Session: Fabrication, Integration, and Packaging Techniques for MEMS
Presenter: D. Gao, University of California at Berkeley
Authors: D. Gao, University of California at Berkeley
M.B.J. Wijesundara, University of California at Berkeley
C. Carraro, University of California at Berkeley
R.T. Howe, University of California at Berkeley
R. Maboudian, University of California at Berkeley
Correspondent: Click to Email
Polycrystalline 3C-SiC films were etched by oxygen-mixed sulfur hexafluoride transformer coupled plasmas (TCP) in a commercial LAM TCP 9400 etcher for MEMS applications. The SiC films were grown by single-source CVD at 850°C using 1,3-disilabutane as the precursor.@footnote 1@ Low-temperature CVD SiO@sub 2@ and plasma-enhanced CVD SiO@sub 2@ were employed as etching masks, which avoided micromasking phenomena and chamber contamination commonly involved when using metals as masks in most SiC etching processes. The SiC etch rates changed slightly with O@sub 2@ percentage, reaching maximum of 3800 Å/min at 16% O@sub 2@. Etching rate ratio of SiC/SiO@sub 2@ increased with O@sub 2@ percentage, reaching 2.6 at 50% O@sub 2@. By integrating the etching process into micromachining techniques, SiC-based micromechanical structures were fabricated. The etching profile and the chemical components of etched SiC surfaces were examined by cross sectional SEM and X-ray photospectroscopy respectively. @FootnoteText@ @footnote 1@ C.R. Stoldt, et al., Proceeding of Transducers 01, the 11th International Conference on Solid-State Sensor and Actuators, Munich, Germany, June 10-14, 2001, pp. 984-987.