• Proceedings of the Korean Radioactive Waste Society Conference
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• 2004.06a
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• pp.32-42
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• 2004

Recently, plasma surface-cleaning or surface-etching techniques have been focused in respect of the decontamination of spent or used nuclear parts and equipment. In this study the removal rate of metallic cobalt surface is experimentally investigated via its surface etching rate with a $CF_4-o_2$mixed gas plasma. Experimental results reveal that a mixed etchant gas with about 80% $CF_4$-20% $O_2$ (molar) gives the highest reaction rate and the rate reaches 0.06 ${\mu}m$/min at $380^{\circ}C$ and ion-assisted etching dramatically enhances the surface reaction rate. With a negative 300 V DC bias voltage applied to the substrate, the surface reaction initiation temperature lowers and the rate increases about 20 times at $350^{\circ}C$ and up to 0.43 ${\mu}m$/min at $380^{\circ}C$, respectively. Surface morphology analysis confirms the etching rate measurements. Auger spectrum analysis clearly shows the adsorption of fluorine atoms on the reacted surface. From the current experimental findings and the results discussed in previous studies, mechanistic understanding of the surface reaction, fluorination and/or fluoro-carbonylation reaction, is provided.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.13 no.12
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• pp.996-1002
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• 2000

Ferroelectric (Ba, Sr) TiO$_3$(BST) thin films have attracted much attention for use in new capacitor materials of dynamic random access memories (DRAMs). In order to apply BST to the DRAMs, the etching process for BST thin film with high etch rate and vertical profile must be developed. However, the former studies have the problem of low etch rate. In this study, in order to increase the etch rate, BST thin films were etched with a magnetically enhanced inductively coupled plasma(MEICP) that have much higher plasma density than RIE (reactive ion etching) and ICP (inductively coupled plasma). Experiment was done by varying the etching parameters such as CF$_4$/(CF$_4$+Ar) gas mixing ratio, rf power, dc bias voltage and chamber pressure. The maximum etch rate of the BST films was 170nm/min under CF$_4$/CF$_4$+Ar) of 0.1, 600 W/-350 V and 5 mTorr. The selectivities of BST to Pt and PR were 0.6 and 0.7, respectively. Chemical reaction and residue of the etched surface were investigated with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS).

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.145-152
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• 1992

Si surfaces exposed to CHF3/C2F6 gas plasmas ih reactive ion etching (RIE) have been characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). CHF3/C2F6 gas plasma exposure of Si surface leads to the deposition of residual film containing carbon and fluorine. The narrow scan spectra of C 1s show various bonding states of carbon as C-Si, C-F/H, C-CFx(x $\leq$ 3), C-F, C-F2, and C-F3. The chemical bonding states of fluorine are described with F-Si, F-C and F-O. And the oxygen and silicon are also detected. The effects of parameters for reactive ion etching as CHF3/C2F6 gas ratio, RF power, and pressure are investigated.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.519-524
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• 2005

A numerical process to simulate SiO2 dry etching with inductively coupled C2F6 plasmas has been constructed using a commercial CFD code as a first step to design a run-to-run control system. The simulator was tuned to reasonably predict the reactive ion etching behavior and used to investigate the effects of plasma operating variables on the etch rate and uniformity. The relationship between the operating variables and the etching characteristics was mathematically modeled through linear regression for future run-to-run control system design.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.473-474
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• 2008

This paper proposes that the relative transmittance and emission intensity measured via optical emission spectroscopy (OES) is a useful for fault detection of reactive ion etch process. With the increased requests for non-invasive as well as real-time plasma process monitoring for fault detection and classification (FDC), OES is suggested as a useful diagnostic tool that satisfies both of the requirements. Relative optical transmittance and emission intensity of oxygen plasma acquired from various process conditions are directly compared with the process variables, such as RF power, oxygen flow and chamber pressure. The changes of RF power and Pressure are linearly proportional to the emission intensity while the change of gas flow can be detected with the relative transmittance.

• 한국정보디스플레이학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.07a
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• pp.1038-1041
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• 2003

In the paper, we investigated silicon surface microstructures formed by reactive ion etching in hollow cathode system. Wet anisotropic chemical etching technique use to form random pyramidal structure on <100> silicon wafers usually is not effective in texturing of low-cost multicrystalline silicon wafers because of random orientation nature, but High density hollow cathode plasma system illustrates high deposition rate, better film crystal structure, improved etching characteristics. The etched silicon surface is covered by columnar microstructures with diameters form 50 to 100nm and depth of about 500nm. We used $SF_{6}$ and $O_{2}$ gases in HCP dry etch process. This paper demonstrates very high plasma density of $2{\times}10^{12}$ $cm^{-3}$ at a discharge current of 20 mA. Silicon etch rate of 1.3 ${\mu}s/min$. was achieved with $SF_{6}/O_{2}$ plasma conditions of total gas pressure=50 mTorr, gas flow rate=40 sccm, and rf power=200 W. Our experimental results can be used in various display systems such as thin film growth and etching for TFT-LCDs, emitter tip formations for FEDs, and bright plasma discharge for PDP applications. In this paper we directed our study to the silicon etching properties such as high etching rate, large area uniformity, low power with the high density plasma.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2001.07a
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• pp.62-65
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• 2001

$SrBi_2Ta_2O_{9}$ thin films were etched in inductively coupled $Cl_{2}$/$CF_{4}$/Ar plasma. The maximum etch rate was 1060 $\AA\textrm{m}$/min in $Cl_{2}$/$CF_{4}$/Ar (80). The chemical reactions on the etched surface were studied with x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The etching of SBT thin films in $Cl_{2}$/$CF_{4}$/Ar were etched by chemically assisted reactive ion etching. The small addition of $Cl_2$ into $CF_4$(20)/Ar(80) plasma will decrease the fluorine radicals and the increase Cl radical.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.02a
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• pp.213-213
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• 2010

Magnetic random access memory (MRAM), based on magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) and CMOS, is one of the best semiconductor memories because it can provide nonvolatility, fast access time, unlimited read/write endurance, low operating voltage and high storage density. For the realization of high density MRAM, the etching of MTJ stack with good properties is one of a key process. Recently, there has been great interest in the MTJ stack using MgO as barrier layer for its huge room temperature MR ratio. The use of MgO barrier layer will undoubtedly accelerate the development of MTJ stack for MRAM. In this study, high-density plasma reactive ion etching of MgO films was investigated in an inductively coupled plasma of $Cl_2$/Ar gas mixes. The etch rate, etch selectivity and etch profile of this magnetic film were examined on vary gas concentration. As the $Cl_2$ gas concentration increased, the etch rate of MgO monotonously decreased and etch slop was slanted. The effective of etch parameters including coil rf power, dc-bais voltage, and gas pressure on the etch profile of MgO thin film was explored, At high coil rf power, high dc-bais voltage, low gas pressure, the etching of MgO displayed better etch profiles. Finally, the clean and vertical etch sidewall of MgO films was achieved using $Cl_2$/Ar plasma at the optimized etch conditions.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.93-93
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• 2016

Large scale integrated circuits (LSIs) has been improved by the shrinkage of the circuit dimensions. The smaller chip sizes and increase in circuit density require the miniaturization of the line-width and space between metal interconnections. Therefore, an extreme precise control of the critical dimension and pattern profile is necessary to fabricate next generation nano-electronics devices. The pattern profile control of plasma etching with an accuracy of sub-nanometer must be achieved. To realize the etching process which achieves the problem, understanding of the etching mechanism and precise control of the process based on the real-time monitoring of internal plasma parameters such as etching species density, surface temperature of substrate, etc. are very important. For instance, it is known that the etched profiles of organic low dielectric (low-k) films are sensitive to the substrate temperature and density ratio of H and N atoms in the H2/N2 plasma [1]. In this study, we introduced a feedback control of actual substrate temperature and radical density ratio monitored in real time. And then the dependence of etch rates and profiles of organic films have been evaluated based on the substrate temperatures. In this study, organic low-k films were etched by a dual frequency capacitively coupled plasma employing the mixture of H2/N2 gases. A 100-MHz power was supplied to an upper electrode for plasma generation. The Si substrate was electrostatically chucked to a lower electrode biased by supplying a 2-MHz power. To investigate the effects of H and N radical on the etching profile of organic low-k films, absolute H and N atom densities were measured by vacuum ultraviolet absorption spectroscopy [2]. Moreover, using the optical fiber-type low-coherence interferometer [3], substrate temperature has been measured in real time during etching process. From the measurement results, the temperature raised rapidly just after plasma ignition and was gradually saturated. The temporal change of substrate temperature is a crucial issue to control of surface reactions of reactive species. Therefore, by the intervals of on-off of the plasma discharge, the substrate temperature was maintained within ${\pm}1.5^{\circ}C$ from the set value. As a result, the temperatures were kept within $3^{\circ}C$ during the etching process. Then, we etched organic films with line-and-space pattern using this system. The cross-sections of the organic films etched for 50 s with the substrate temperatures at $20^{\circ}C$ and $100^{\circ}C$ were observed by SEM. From the results, they were different in the sidewall profile. It suggests that the reactions on the sidewalls changed according to the substrate temperature. The precise substrate temperature control method with real-time temperature monitoring and intermittent plasma generation was suggested to contribute on realization of fine pattern etching.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.106-109
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• 2011

We investigated the etching characteristics of titanium nitride (TiN) thin film in $BCl_3$/Ar inductively coupled plasma. The etching parameters were the gas mixing ratio, radio frequency (RF) power, direct current (DC)-bias voltages and process pressures. The standard conditions were as follows: total flow rate = 20 sccm, RF power = 500 W, DC-bias voltage = -100 V, substrate temperature = $40^{\circ}C$, and process pressure = 15 mTorr. The maximum etch rate of TiN thin film and the selectivity of TiN to $Al_2O_3$ thin film were 54 nm/min and 0.79. The results of X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy showed no accumulation of etch byproducts from the etched surface of TiN thin film. The TiN film etch was dominated by the chemical etching with assistance by Ar sputtering in reactive ion etching mechanism, based on the experimental results.