• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.483-488
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• 2006

Etching process of PMMA (Polymethyl Methacrylate) on glass surface was investigated by dry etching technique using remote plasma. To determine the etching characteristics, the remote plasma etching was conducted for various process parameters such as plasma power, reaction gas and distance from plasma generation. As the distance from the plasma generation was increased, the etch rate of PMMA was linearly decreased by radical density in plasma. PMMA has removed by reactive radicals in the plasma. The etch rate increased with plasma power because of more reactive radicals. The etch rate and surface roughness of PMMA increased with $O_2$ concentration in the etchant.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.268-273
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• 2014

$Y_2O_3$ ceramic specimens were fabricated from the granular powder, obtained by spray drying process from the slurry. The slurry was prepared by mixing PVA binder, NaOH for Ph control, PEG and $Y_2O_3$ powder. The $Y_2O_3$ specimen was shaped in size of ${\phi}14mm$ and then sintered at $1650^{\circ}C$. The characteristics, microstructure, densities and plasma resistance of the $Y_2O_3$ specimens were investigated with the function of forming pressure and sintering time. $Y_2O_3$ specimens were exposed under the $CHF_3/O_2/Ar$ plasma, the dry etching treatment of specimens was carried out by the physical reaction etching of $Ar^+$ ion beam and the chemical reaction etching of $F^-$ ion decomposed from $CHF_3$. With increasing sintering time, $Y_2O_3$ specimens showed relatively high density and strong resistance in plasma etching test.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 1999.11d
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• pp.848-850
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• 1999

In this study, PZT etching was performed using planar inductively coupled Ar(20)/$Cl_2/BCl_3$ plasma, The etch rate of PZT film was 2450 $\AA/min$ at Ar(20)/$BCl_3$(80) gas mixing ratio and substrate temperature of $80^{\circ}C$. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis for film composition was utilized. The chemical bond of PbO is broken by ion bombardment, and the peak of metal Pb in a Pb 4f peak begins to appear upon etching, decreasing Pb content faster than Zr and Ti. As increase content of additive $BCl_3$, the relative content of oxygen decreases rapidly. We thought that abundant Band BCl radicals made volatile oxy-compound such as $B_{x}O_{y}$ and/or $BClO_x$ bond. To understand etching mechanism, Langmuir probe and optical emission spectroscopy (OES) analysis were utilized for plasma diagnostic.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.26-31
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• 2023

We investigated the impact of NF₃ / H₂O remote plasma dry cleaning conditions on the SiO₂ etching rate at different preparation states during the fabrication of ultra-large-scale integration (ULSI) devices. This included consideration of factors like Si crystal orientation prior to oxidation and three-dimensional structures. The dry cleaning process were carried out varying the parameters of pressure, NF₃ flow rate, and H₂O flow rate. We found that the pressure had an effective role in controlling anisotropic etching when a thin SiO₂ layer was situated between Si₃N₄ and Si layers in a multilayer trench structure. Based on these observations, we would like to provide further guidelines for implementing the dry cleaning process in the fabrication of semiconductor devices having 3D structures.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.30-34
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• 2019

We analyzed how the features in plasma information based virtual metrology (PI-VM) for SiO₂ etching depth with variation of 5% contribute to the prediction accuracy, which is previously developed by Jang. As a single feature, the explanatory power to the process results is in the order of plasma information about electron energy distribution function (PI_EEDF), equipment, and optical emission spectroscopy (OES) features. In the procedure of stepwise variable selection (SVS), OES features are selected after PI_EEDF. Informative vector for developed PI-VM also shows relatively high correlation between OES features and etching depth. This is because the reaction rate of each chemical species that governs the etching depth can be sensitively monitored when OES features are used with PI_EEDF. Securing PI_EEDF is important for the development of virtual metrology (VM) for prediction of process results. The role of PI_EEDF as an independent feature and the ability to monitor variation of plasma thermal state can make other features in the procedure of SVS more sensitive to the process results. It is expected that fault detection and classification (FDC) can be effectively developed by using the PI-VM.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.298-303
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• 2003

Bi$_4$-$_{x}$EU$_{x}$Ti$_3$O$_{12}$ (BET) thin films were etched by inductively coupled CF$_4$/Ar plasma. We obtained the maximum etch rate of 78 nm/min at the gas mixing ratio of CF$_4$(10%)/Ar(90%). The variation of volume density for F and Ar atoms are measured by the optical emission spectroscopy. As CF$_4$increased in CF$_4$/Ar plasma, the emission intensities of F increase, but Ar atoms decrease, which confirms our suggestion that emission intensity is proportional to the volume density of atoms. From X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, the intensities of the Bi-O, the Eu-O and the Ti-O peaks are changed. By pure Ar plasma, intensity peak of the oxygen-metal (O-M : TiO$_2$, Bi$_2$O$_3$, Eu$_2$O$_3$) bond was seemed to disappear while the intensity of pure oxygen peak showed an opposite tendency. After the BET thin films was etched by CF$_4$/Ar plasma, the peak intensity of O-M bond increase slowly, but more quickly than that of peak belonged to pure oxygen atoms due to the decrease of Ar ion bombardment. Scanning electron microscopy was used to investigate etching Profile. The Profile of etched BET thin film was over 85$^{\circ}$./TEX>.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.17 no.12
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• pp.642-647
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• 2007

We investigated dry etching of acrylic (PMMA) in $O_2/N_2$ plasmas using a multi-layers electrode reactive ion etching (RIE) system. The multi-layers electrode RIE system had an electrode (or a chuck) consisted of 4 individual layers in a series. The diameter of the electrodes was 150 mm. The etch process parameters we studied were both applied RIE chuck power on the electrodes and % $O_2$ composition in the $N_2/O_2$ plasma mixtures. In details, the RIE chuck power was changed from 75 to 200 W.% $O_2$ in the plasmas was varied from 0 to 100% at the fixed total gas flow rates of 20 sccm. The etch results of acrylic in the multilayers electrode RIE system were characterized in terms of negatively induced dc bias on the electrode, etch rates and RMS surface roughness. Etch rate of acrylic was increased more than twice from about $0.2{\mu}m/min$ to over $0.4{\mu}m/min$ when RIE chuck power was changed from 75 to 200 W. 1 sigma uniformity of etch rate variation of acrylic on the 4 layers electrode was slightly increased from 2.3 to 3.2% when RIE chuck power was changed from 75 to 200 W at the fixed etch condition of 16 sccm $O_2/4\;sccm\;N_2$ gas flow and 100 mTorr chamber pressure. Surface morphology was also investigated using both a surface profilometry and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The RMS roughness of etched acrylic surface was strongly affected by % $O_2$ composition in the $O_2/N_2$ plasmas. However, RIE chuck power changes hardly affected the roughness results in the range of 75-200 W. During etching experiment, Optical Emission Spectroscopy (OES) data was taken and we found both $N_2$ peak (354.27 nm) and $O_2$ peak (777.54 nm). The preliminarily overall results showed that the multi-layers electrode concept could be successfully utilized for high volume reactive ion etching of acrylic in the future.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers C
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• v.48 no.6
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• pp.451-455
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• 1999

The highest etch rate of Pt film was obtained at 10% $Cl_2$/90% Ar gas mixing ratio in our previous investigation. However, the problems such as the etch residues(fence) remained on the pattern sidewall, low selectivity to oxide as mask and low etch slope were presented. In this paper, the etching by additive $O_2$ gas to 10% $Cl_2$/90% Ar gas base was examined. As a result, the fence-free pattern and higher etch slope as about 60$^{\circ}$was observed and the selectivity to oxide increased to 2.4 without decreasing of the etch rate $1500{\AA}$/min. XPS surface analysis proved that a only little $O_2$ gas removes the Pt-CI compounds as residues on the etched surface.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2004.11a
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• pp.72-74
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• 2004

In this study, we used a inductively coupled plasma (ICP) source for etching $Al_2O_3$ thin films because of its high plasma density, low process pressure and easy control bias power. $Al_2O_3$ thin films were etched using $Cl_2/BCl_3$, $N_2/Cl_2/BCl_3$, and Ar/$Cl_2/BCl_3$ plasma. The experiments were carried out measuring the etch rates and the selectivities of $Al_2O_3$ to $SiO_2$ as a function of gas mixing ratio, rf power, and chamber pressure. When $Cl_2$ 50% was added to $Cl_2/BCl_3$ plasma, the etch rate of the $Al_2O_3$ films was 118 nm/min. We also investigated the effect of gas addition. In case of $N_2$ addition, the etch rate of the $Al_2O_3$ films decreased while $N_2$ was added into $Cl_2/BCl_3$ plasma. However, the etch rate increased slightly as Ar added into $Cl_2/BCl_3$ plasma, and then further increase of Ar decreased the etch rate. The maximum etch rate was 130 nm/min at Ar 20% in $Cl_2/BCl_3$ plasma, and the highest etch selectivity was 0.81 in $N_2$ 20% in $Cl_2/BCl_3$ plasma. And, we obtained the results that the etch rate increases as rf power increases and chamber pressure decreases. The characteristics of the plasmas were estimated using optical emission spectroscopy (OES).

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.25 no.9
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• pp.681-685
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• 2012

We investigated the dry etching characteristics of TiN in $TiN/Al_2O_3$ gate stack using a inductively coupled plasma system. TiN thin film is etched by BCl3/He plasma. The etching parameters are the gas mixing ratio, the RF power, the DC-bias voltages and process pressures. The highest etch rate is in $BCl_3/He$ (25%:75%) plasma. The selectivity of TiN thin film to $Al_2O_3$ is pretty similar with $BCl_3/He$ plasma. The chemical reactions of the etched TiN thin films are investigated by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The intensities of the Ti 2p and the N 1s peaks are modified by $BCl_3$ plasma. Intensity and binding energy of Ti and N could be changed due to a chemical reaction on the surface of TiN thin films. Also we investigated that the non-volatile byproducts such as $TiCl_x$ formed by chemical reaction with Cl radicals on the surface of TiN thin films.