Inductively Coupled Plasma etching is an anisotropic dry-etching process where material is removed with the use of chemically reactive plasma under a low pressure (~1-100 mTorr). Typically the material removed is a thinfilm previously deposited on a wafer. The ICP-RIE uses two independent RF sources, one to strike plasma in a gas mixture and one to create a DC bias which extracts and accelerates ions and radicals from the plasma towards a sample surface. This gives indipendent control of ion density and energy. ICP RIE is a popular dry-etching technique because of its possibilty for high ecth rates, great selectivity and reduced ion bombardment.

• Materials allowed: everything which is not considered as contaminating within NanoLab rules, sample size can’t exceed 101.7 mm (4”) in diameter and 5 mm in thickness.
• Process gases: H2, O2, N2, Ar, CF4, SF6, CHF3, He, CH4, Cl2 and BCl3.
• Standard operating temperature: 20°C
• 13.56 MHz RF source
• Typical applications: Anisotropic polymide and SiO2 etchin
• Base pressure: 5E-7 Torr