AVS 50th International Symposium
    Plasma Science and Technology Friday Sessions
       Session PS-FrM

Paper PS-FrM8
Surface Kinetics Study of Silicon Oxide Etching with Fluorocarbons Plasmas

Friday, November 7, 2003, 10:40 am, Room 315

Session: Plasma-Surface Interactions: Etching
Presenter: O Kwon, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Authors: O Kwon, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
H.H. Sawin, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Correspondent: Click to Email
Fluorocarbon plasma for silicon oxide etching is a complicated system involving many ion and neutral species. Depending on the plasma condition, many difficulties arise such as RIE lag, etch stop, and low selectivity to photoresist. For a better understanding of the process it is necessary to have an appropriate physical model to describe the surface kinetics including simultaneous etching and deposition. We developed a surface kinetic model using ABACUSS II, a modeling environment and simulator. In the modeling we included the effect of both neutral and ion fluxes to the surface, sticking probabilities, surface composition, sputter etching reactions, ion enhanced chemical etching reactions and neutral-to-ion flux ratio. We demonstrated this model by applying it to various systems such as silicon etching with chlorine/fluorine plasma, silicon oxide etching with chlorine/fluorine plasma and silicon oxide etching with fluorocarbon plasma. This model was verified using measured etching yield data determined by quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) in conjunction with plasma neutral and ion concentrations/fluxes determined by mass spectrometry.