AVS 49th International Symposium
    Plasma Science Wednesday Sessions
       Session PS+TF-WeP

Paper PS+TF-WeP19
Improvement of Etching Sub-micron Photonic Structure by Enhanced-inductively Coupled Plasma (E-ICP)

Wednesday, November 6, 2002, 11:00 am, Room Exhibit Hall B2

Session: Plasma Etching & Deposition
Presenter: B.H. O, Inha University, Rep. of Korea
Authors: S.B. Jo, Inha University, Rep. of Korea
B.H. O, Inha University, Rep. of Korea
Y. Fainman, University of California, San Diego
S.G. Park, Inha University, Rep. of Korea
S.G. Lee, Inha University, Rep. of Korea
E.H. Lee, Inha University, Rep. of Korea
Correspondent: Click to Email
Photonic crystals have attracted broad range of interests due to fascinating control power of light propagation in photonic devices. As it is important in photonic devices to have optical surface smoothness and high accuracy of critical dimensions, it is not simple to fabricate photonic crystals with sub-micron period. It is required to minimize surface smoothness and to have highly anisotropic etch profile in order to achieve high fidelity fabrication of photonic crystal structures. In this study, we have fabricated a silicon-oxide sub-micron grating for 1D-photonic crystal structure by plasma etching method. A simple periodic grating structure with a period of sub-wavelength of a light is a kind of one dimensional photonic crystal with a special purpose. The characteristics, such as etch profile and surface roughness, are improved in enhanced inductively coupled plasma (E-ICP) technique compared to normal ICP technique. PMMA as a mask of a fine-grating patterning is patterned by a E-beam lithography. Sub-micron grating patterns have been successfully transferred into silicon-oxide layer with high etch rate over 350 nm/min, at the optimized condition of an E-ICP mode. The vertical angles are about 90° and the surface roughness is less than 20 nm as seen in a scanning electron microscope (SEM) images.