Plasmaless cleaning process of silicon surface using chlorine trifluoride

Abstract

Plasmaless etching using ClF3 gas around room temperature has been investigated for the silicon substrates with the various thicknesses of native oxide. The native oxide can be removed with ClF3 gas. A specular surface is obtained by ultraviolet light irradiation which remarkably accelerates the removal of the native oxide without changing the etch rate of silicon. The etched surface is analyzed with Auger electron measurement, indicating the existence of Cl atoms on it.

Silicon Etch Rate Using Chlorine Trifluoride

“…Chlorine trifluoride (ClF 3 ) gas has very high reactivity, particularly for plasmaless fluorination, for etching and surface modification of various materials at low temperatures. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17] For further development and advance of its industrial applications, the rate and the behavior of the chemical reaction should be systematically studied. For this purpose, the authors studied 15,16 the chemical reaction of chlorine trifluoride gas with silicon, which is an important semiconductor material for manufacturing electronic devices for information technology.…”

Highly selective isotropic gas-phase etching of SiO2 using HF and methanol at temperatures –30 °C and lower

“…The third candidate is gas-phase etching, which utilizes anhydrous HF gas [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] and ClF 3 gas. [26][27][28] Although the reactivity of these gases is lower than that of fluorine radicals, enough etchant can be supplied diffusively in high aspect patterns. Since the etchant can react at the bottom as much as the top, the etching uniformity is expected to improve compared to the conventional plasma etching method.…”

Evaluation of the Difference in the Rate Coefficients of F2 + NOx (x = 1 or 2) → F + FNOx by the Stereochemical Arrangement Using the Density Functional Theory

“…Generation of F in the gas phase is necessary to fabricate Si-based semiconductor devices and MEMS devices. − Various gases such as XeF 2 − and ClF 3 − have been reported to produce F and they have been used as precursors for the chemical dry etching apparatus to texture the Si single crystal solar panels and to remove the Si layer activating the microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) . Recently, we reported that chemical reaction of F 2 and NO can be used to exothermically generate F. , Experimentally, several rate coefficients k 1 for the reaction (1) have been reported and representative values are listed in eqs () and () .…”