Abstract
Among the feffoelectric thin films that have been widely investigated for ferroelectric random access memory (FRAM) applications, SrBi$_2$Ta$_2$$O_{9}$ thin film is appropriate to memory capacitor materials for its excellent fatigue endurance. However, very few studies on etch properties of SBT thin film have been reported although dry etching is an area that demands a great deal of attention in the very large scale integrations. In this study, the a SrBi$_2$Ta$_2$$O_{9}$ thin films were etched by using magnetically enhanced inductively coupled Ar/CHF$_3$ plasma. Etch properties, such as etch rate, selectivity, and etched profile, were measured according to gas mixing ratio of CHF$_3$(Ar$_{7}$+CHF$_3$) and the other process conditions were fixed at RF power of 600 W, dc bias voltage of 150 V, chamber pressure of 10 mTorr. Maximum etch rate of SBT thin films was 1750 A77in, under CHF$_3$(Ar+CHF$_3$) of 0.1. The selectivities of SBT to Pt and PR were 1.35 and 0.94 respectively. The chemical reaction of etched surface were investigated by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis. The Sr and Ta atoms of SBT film react with fluorine and then Sr-F and Ta-F were removed by the physical sputtering of Ar ion. The surface of etched SBT film with CHF$_3$(Ar+CHF$_3$) of 0.1 was analyzed by secondary ion mass spectrometer (SIMS). Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used for examination of etched profile of SBT film under CHF$_3$(Ar+CHF$_3$) of 0.1 was about 85˚.85˚.˚.
