AVS 50th International Symposium
    Surface Science Tuesday Sessions
       Session SS-TuP

Paper SS-TuP15
Controlling Silicon Surface Morphology with Aqueous Etching: The Surprising Effect of Barriers

Tuesday, November 4, 2003, 5:30 pm, Room Hall A-C

Session: Poster Session
Presenter: H. Bao, Cornell University
Authors: H. Bao, Cornell University
S.P. Garcia, Cornell University
M.A. Hines, Cornell University
Correspondent: Click to Email
For reasons that are not completely understood, nanoscale surface morphology can influence the electronic, chemical and mechanical properties of a variety of devices. Thus, the ability to fabricate atomically smooth micron-scale regions of silicon would b e beneficial to many technologies. In this research, we use chemical etching to force the atomic height steps on a vicinal surface bunch into "macrosteps" -- micron-high macroscopic steps that separate terraces of near-atomic flatness. Interestingly, we f ind that the orientation of the macrosteps does not always correspond to the vicinal step direction. Instead, the orientation of the macrosteps can be controlled by lithographically patterned etch barriers. A variety of surface morphologies created by the barriers are presented and characterized by a combination of optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). In some cases, the patterned barriers lead to large, nearly atomically flat regions. In other cases, macrosteps are curved and oriented by the barrier structure.