Abstract

During the last few years, the rapidly growing need for ion-assisted, anisotropic etching of a.o. silicon and its compounds for VLSI circuits, has stimulated basic research on the processes underlying the largely empirical etch recipes. Part of the plasma etch process can be simulated in an experiment, where the combined effect of the exposure of a film (Si) to chemically active gases (XeF2, C12, SF6), and a low-energy ion beam (Ar+) has been investigated. Special attention will be paid to the reaction of Si with C12 alone, Si(C12), and under simultaneous exposure to an Ar+ ion beam, Si(C12,Ar+), as a function of the target temperature T, the Ar+ ion energy Ep, and the C12 flux ϕC12, using mass spectrometry and time-of-flight analysis.

© 1985 Optical Society of America