Pseudo‐Wet Plasma Mechanism Enabling High‐Throughput Dry Etching of SiO <sub>2</sub> by Cryogenic‐Assisted Surface Reactions
Shih‐Nan Hsiao, Makoto Sekine, Nikolay Britun, Michael Mo, Yusuke Imai, Takayoshi Tsutsumi, Kenji Ishikawa, Yuki Iijima, Ryutaro Suda, Masahiko Yokoi, Yoshihide Kihara, Masaru Hori
Abstract
Abstract Manufacturing semiconductor devices requires advanced patterning technologies, including reactive ion etching (RIE) based on the synergistic interactions between ions and etch gas. However, these interactions weaken as devices continuously scale down to sub‐nanoscale, primarily attributed to the diminished transport of radicals and ions into the small features. This leads to a significant decrease in etch rate (ER). Here, a novel synergistic interaction involving ions, surface‐adsorbed chemistries, and materials at cryogenic temperatures is found to exhibit a significant increase in the ER of SiO 2 using CF 4 /H 2 plasmas. The ER increases twofold when plasma with H 2 /(CF 4 + H 2 ) = 33% is used and the substrate temperature is lowered from 20 to −60 °C. The adsorption of HF and H 2 O on the SiO 2 surface at cryogenic temperatures is confirmed using in situ Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The synergistic interactions of the surface‐adsorbed HF/H 2 O as etching catalysts and plasma species result in the ER enhancement. Therefore, a mechanism called “pseudo‐wet plasma etching” is proposed to explain the cryogenic etching process. This synergy demonstrates that the enhanced etch process is determined by the surface interactions between ions, surface‐adsorbed chemistry, and the material being etched, rather than interactions between ion and gas phase, as observed in the conventional RIE.