Ion Beam Etching Process

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Ion beam etching process.

Rie is a type of dry etching which has different characteristics than wet etching. In essence an ion beam source is a plasma source having a set of grids that enable extraction of a stream of ions. Ion production is done in the discharge chamber by subjecting a gas like argon to an rf field. Rie uses chemically reactive plasma to remove material deposited on wafers.

Ion beam etching also known as ion beam milling or ion milling is the most widely used etching method for preparing solid state samples for scanning electron microscopy sem applications. Ibm or etching is generally a surface finishing process in which the material removal takes place by sputtering of ions. The three main parts of the ion beam source are the discharge chamber the grids and the neutraliser. The number of electric short fails increases markedly at an ion beam angle greater than 35.

The electric short fail trend of the perpendicular magnetic tunnel junctions p mtjs caused by the ion beam etching ibe process is studied at various ion beam angles and cell to cell space widths. In this process the sample material is bombarded with high energy argon ion beams in a high vacuum chamber. The chemically assisted ion beam etching uses the technology of ion beam milling or ion beam trimming and adds additional reactive gases close to the substrate typically by a gas ring. Ion beam etching or milling is achieved by directing a beam of charged particles ions at a substrate with a suitably patterned mask in a high vacuum chamber.

Thereby argon ions are radiated onto the surface as an ion beam with about 1 to 3 kev. The wafer is held perpendicular or tilted into the ion beam the etch progress is absolute anisotropic. It enables highly directional beams of neutral ions to control over the sidewall profile as well as radial uniformity optimisation and feature shaping during nanopatterning. Focused ion beam also known as fib is a technique used particularly in the semiconductor industry materials science and increasingly in the biological field for site specific analysis deposition and ablation of materials.

The process is different from electric discharge electron beam laser and plasma arc machining in that the process does not depend on heating of the workpiece to the point of evaporation. The plasma is generated under low pressure vacuum by an electromagnetic field. Reactive ion etching rie is an etching technology used in microfabrication. Because of the energy of the ions they strike out material of the surface.

Plasma and ion beam etching deposition technology.