• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
• /
• v.46 no.3
• /
• pp.169-173
• /
• 2008

Characteristics of etching and induced surface morphology variation by wet-etching of n-type GaN were investigated using phosphoric acidic solutions. Generally, the etch-rate was increased as the temperature of the etch solutions was increased, and the highest etch rate of about $300{\AA}/min$ was achieved at the temperature of $180^{\circ}C$. The morphology variation of the etched surface was observed by optical microscopy and atomic force microscopy. Initially, high density of hexagonal holes or pits were formed on the etched surface at the time of 40 min with the bimodal size of $20{\mu}m$ or $5{\mu}m$, respectively. However, as the etching time was increased further, the lateral size of the hexagonal holes or pits was increased, and finally, joined and merged together at the time of 100 min. This means that the etching of n-type GaN by phosphoric acidic solutions proceeded through the lateral widening and the merging of initial holes and pits.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
• /
• v.24 no.5
• /
• pp.196-201
• /
• 2014

We investigated defects and surface polarity in AlN and GaN by using wet chemical etching. Therefore, the effectiveness and reliability of estimating the single crystals by defect selective etching in NaOH/KOH eutectic alloy have been successfully demonstrated. High-quality AlN and GaN single crystals were etched in molten NaOH/KOH eutectic alloy. The etching characteristics and surface morphologies were carried out by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and atomic force microscope (AFM). The etch rates of AlN and GaN surface were calculated by etching depth as a function of etching time. As a result, two-types of etch pits with different sizes were revealed on AlN and GaN surface, respectively. Etching produced hexagonal pits on the metal-face (Al, Ga) (0001) plane, while hexagonal hillocks formed on the N-face. On etching rate calibration, it was found that N-face had approximately 109 and 15 times higher etch rate than the metal-face of AlN and GaN, respectively. The size of etch pits increased with an increase of the etching time and they tend to merge together with a neighbouring etch pits. Also, the chemical mechanism of each etching process was discussed. It was found that hydroxide ion ($OH^-$) and the dangling bond of nitrogen play an important role in the selective etching of the metal-face and N-face.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2010.11a
• /
• pp.48.1-48.1
• /
• 2010

Mono-crystalline silicon solar cell is fabricated by using alkali metals. These alkali metal, used in wet etching process, must be removed for the high efficiency solar cell. As wet etching process has been adapted due to its low cost. But lots of alkali metals like potassium remains on the silicon surface and acts as impurities. To remove these alkali metals many of cleaning process have to be applied when solar cell manufacturing process. In terms of alkali metal removal, modified etchant solution is required for concise cleaning process. In this paper ethylenediamine was used and proposed for the substituion of postassium hydroxide.

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
• /
• v.47 no.11
• /
• pp.748-753
• /
• 2009

The surface morphology and the surface roughness of n-type SiC induced by wet-treatment using 45% KOH and buffered oxide etchant (BOE-1HF : $6H_2O$) were investigated by atomic force microscopy (AFM). While Si-face of SiC could be etched by alkali solutions such as KOH, acidic solutions such as BOE were hardly able to etch SiC. When the rough SiC samples were used, the surface roughness of etched sample was decreased after wet-treatment regardless of etchant, due to the planarization the of surface by widening of scratches formed by mechanical polishing. It was observed that the initial etching was affected by the energetically unstable sites, such as dangling bond and steps. However, when a relatively smooth sample was used, the surface roughness was rapidly increased after treatment at $180^{\circ}C$ for 1 hr and at room temperature for 4 hr by using KOH solution, resulting from the nano-sized structures such as pores and bumps. This indicates that porous SiC surface can be achieved by using purely chemical treatment.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
• /
• v.16 no.1
• /
• pp.1-8
• /
• 2013

This review article summarizes metal-assisted chemical etching (MAC etch or MACE), an anisotropic etching method for Si, and describes principles, main factors, and recent achievements in literature. In 1990, it was discovered that, with metal catalyst on surface and $H_2O_2$/HF as etchant, Si substrate can be etched anisotropically, in even in solution. In contrast to high-cost vacuum-based dry etching methods, MAC etch enables to fabricate a variety of high aspect ratio nanostructures through wet etching process.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
• /
• v.25 no.3
• /
• pp.176-181
• /
• 2012

Due to the high etch rate and low fabrication cost, the wet etching of silicon using KOH etchant is widely used in MEMS fabrication area. However, anisotropic etch characteristic obstruct intuitional mask design and compensation structures are required for mask design level. Therefore, the accurate modeling for various types of silicon surface is essential for fabrication of three-dimensional MEMS structure. In this paper, we modeled KOH etch profile for MEMS based energy harvester using fuzzy logic. Modeling results are compared with experimental results and it is applied to design of compensation structure for MEMS based energy harvester. Through Fuzzy inference approaches, developed model showed good agreement with the experimental results with limited etch rate information.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
• /
• v.19 no.2
• /
• pp.77-81
• /
• 2020

Silicon wafer etching in micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS) fabrication is challenging to form 3-D structures. Well known Si-wet etch of silicon employs potassium hydroxide (KOH), tetramethylammonium hydroxide (TMAH) and sodium hydroxide (NaOH). However, the existing silicon wet etching process has a fatal disadvantage that etching of the back side of the wafer is hard to avoid. In this study, a wet etching bath for 150 mm wafers was designed to prevent back-side etching of silicon wafer, and we demonstrated the optimized process recipe to have anisotropic wet etching of silicon wafer without any damage on the backside. We also presented the design of wet bath for 300 mm wafer processing as a promising process development.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
• /
• v.50 no.2
• /
• pp.211-216
• /
• 2012

Wet chemical etching of stainless steel foil by aqueous ferric chloride solution was investigated in this study. Effects of various process parameters (e.g. etchant agitation rate, etchant temperature, $Fe^{3+}$ ion concentration, free HCl concentration, specific gravity, etc.) on the etch rate was first studied, and it was found that the etch rate of AK (aluminum-killed) steel, chromium metal and stainless steel (STS430J1L alloy) follows the pseudo-first order reaction equation. When the fatigue ratio of etchant was kept under 16%, sludge was not formed in the solution, and the etched surface showed smooth roughness. The etch rate decreases as Baume of etchant increases, but the effect of free HCl concentration on the etch rate turned out to be minimal. Experimental data were compared with the calculated results from modeled equation, showing very good agreement.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Surface Engineering Conference
• /
• 2003.05a
• /
• pp.41-41
• /
• 2003

텅스텐(W)은 높은 thermal stability 와 process compatibility 및 우수한 corrosion r resistance 둥으로 integrated circuit (IC)의 gate 및 interconnection 둥으로의 활용이 대두되고 있으며, 차세대 thin film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD)의 gate 및 interconnection m materials 둥으로 사용되고 았다. 그러나, 이러한 장점을 가지고 있는 팅스텐 박막이 실제 공정상에 적용되가 위해서는 건식 식각이 주로 사용되는데, 이는 wet chemical 을 이용한 습식 식각을 사용할 경우 낮은 etch rate, line width 의 감소 및 postetch residue 잔류 동의 문제가 발생하기 때문이다. 또한 W interconnection etching 을 하기 위해서는 높은 텅스텐 박막의 etch rate 과 하부 layer ( (amorphous silicon 또는 poly-SD와의 높은 etch selectivity 가 필수적 이 라 할 수 있다. 그러 나, 지금까지 연구되어온 결과에 따르면 텅스탠과 하부 layer 와의 etch selectivity 는 2 이하로 매우 낮게 관찰되고 았으며, 텅스텐의 etch rate 또한 150nm/min 이하로 낮은 값을 나타내고 있다. 따라서 본 연구에서는 halogen-based inductively coupled plasma 를 이용하여 텅스텐 박막 식각시 여러 가지 첨가 가스에 따른 높은 텅스탠 박막의 etch rate 과 하부 layer 와의 높은 etch s selectivity 를 얻고자 하였으며, 그에 따른 식각 메커니즘에 대하여 알아보고자 하였다. $CF_4/Cl_2$ gas chemistry 에 첨 가 가스로 $N_2$와 Ar을 첨 가할 경 우 텅 스텐 박막과 하부 layer 간의 etch selectivity 증가는 관찰되지 않았으며, 반면에 첨가 가스로 $O_2$를 사용할 경우, $O_2$의 첨가량이 증가함에 따라 etch s selectivity 는 계속적으로 증가렴을 관찰할 수 있었다. 이는 $O_2$ 첨가에 따라 형성되는 WOF4 에 의한 텅스텐의 etch rates 의 감소에 비하여, $Si0_2$ 등의 형성에 의한 poly-Si etch rates 이 더욱 크게 감소하였기 때문으로 사료된다. W 과 poly-Si 의 식각 특성을 이해하기 위하여 X -ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS)를 사용하였으며, 식각 전후의 etch depth 를 측정하기 위하여 stylus p pmfilometeT 를 이용하였다.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
• /
• 2005.10a
• /
• pp.268-271
• /
• 2005

Etch resistance of mask layer on silicon substrate modified by AFM-based Tribo-Nanolithography (TNL) in Aqueous Solution in an aqueous solution was demonstrated. n consists or sequential processes, nano-scratching and wet chemical etching. The simple scratching can form a mask layer on the silicon substrate, which acting as an etching mask. For TNL, a specially designed cantilever with diamond tip, allowing the formation of mask layer on silicon substrate easily by a simple scratching process, has been applied instead of conventional silicon cantilever fur scanning. This study demonstrates how the TNL parameters can affect the etch resistance of mask layer, hence introducing a new process of AFM-based maskless nanolithography in aqueous solution.