过硫酸铵在TMAH体硅刻蚀中的作用

为了提高低浓度下四甲基氢氧化铵(TMAH)体硅刻蚀的质量,通过对质量分数为5%的TMAH进行研究,发现合适的过硫酸铵(AP)添加方式和添加量能够在不降低刻蚀速率的条件下提高体硅刻蚀质量。通过SEM,EDS和XRD对AP的作用机理进行深入分析,发现加入AP能使刻蚀底面生成"伪掩膜",并确定其成分为低温石英晶体。这些"伪掩膜"能够选择性地覆盖于刻蚀底面金字塔小丘的交界区域,使刻蚀底面相对凹陷的部分被保护,而金字塔顶相对凸出的部分则被刻蚀,从而在宏观上达到了降低粗糙度的效果。在此基础上得到了"两步法"的优化刻蚀工艺,结合该工艺已成功制备出深度485μm,平均刻蚀速率1.01μm/min,底面粗糙度仅为0.278μm硅杯微结构。     

Study of electrochemical etch-stop for high-precision thickness control of single-crystal Si in aqueous TMAH : IPA : pyrazine solutions

In this paper, we describe a method of controlling the thickness of single-crystal Si membranes, fabricated by wet anisotropic etching in aqueous tetramethyl ammonium hydroxide (TMAH) : isopropyl alcohol (IPA) : pyrazine solutions. The Si surface of the etch-stopped microdiaphragm is extremely flat with no noticeable taper or nonuniformity. The benefits of the electrochemical etch-stop method for the etching of n epilayer-embedded p-type single-crystal Si(0 0 1) wafers in aqueous TMAH became apparent when the reproducibility of the microdiaphragm’s thickness in mass production was realized. The results indicated that the use of the electrochemical etch-stop method for the etching of Si in aqueous TMAH provided a powerful and versatile alternative process for the fabrication of high-yield Si microdiaphragms (20 ± 0.26 μm s.d). With etch-stop, the pressure sensitivity of devices fabricated on the same wafer can be controlled to within ±2.3% s.d.     

Etch characteristics of KOH, TMAH and dual doped TMAH for bulk micromachining of silicon

High precision bulk micromachining of silicon is a key process step to shape spatial structures for fabricating different type of microsensors and microactuators. A series of etching experiments have been carried out using KOH, TMAH and dual doped TMAH at different etchant concentrations and temperatures wherein silicon, silicon dioxide and aluminum etch rates together with <100> silicon surface morphology and <111>/<100> etch rate ratio have been investigated in each etchant. A comparative study of the etch rates and etched silicon surface roughness at different etching ambient is also presented.From the experimental studies, it is found that etch rates vary with variation of etching ambient. The concentrations that maximize silicon etch rate is 3% for TMAH and 22 wt.% for KOH. Aluminum etch rate is high in KOH and undoped TMAH but negligible in dual doped TMAH. Silicon dioxide etch rate is higher in KOH than in TMAH and dual doped TMAH solutions. The <111>/<100> etch rate ratio is highest in TMAH compared to the other two etchants whereas smoothest etched silicon surface is achieved using dual doped TMAH. The study reveals that dual doped TMAH solution is a very attractive CMOS compatible silicon etchant for commercial MEMS fabrication which has superior characteristics compared to other silicon etchants.     

10%TMAH硅湿法腐蚀技术的研究

研究了浓度为10%的四甲基氢氧化铵(TMAH)溶液,在不同量的Si粉掺杂下,对铝膜及硅衬底的腐蚀及其pH值的变化。测试了在满足铝膜极低的腐蚀速率(<1nm/min)时,不同温度下该腐蚀液对硅(100)、(111)和(110)晶面及SiO2介质膜的腐蚀速率。还介绍了添加剂—过硫酸铵(APODS)和吡嗪的加入对腐蚀表面形貌及腐蚀速率的影响。研究结果表明,存在着一个临界的硅粉添加量,超过此量后铝膜的腐蚀速率急剧降低。90℃时,在10%TMAH溶液中加入1 5mol/L硅粉、3 0g/LAPODS和2g/L吡嗪可以实现铝膜不被腐蚀,同时硅(100)面约有1μm/min的腐蚀速率,腐蚀表面平整。腐蚀后的铝膜表面同硅铝丝键合良好,实现了腐蚀工艺同CMOS工艺的完全兼容。     

TMAH腐蚀液的研究

IMAH是一种新型的、性能优异的各向异性腐蚀液.文章通过大量对比实验,对该腐蚀液用于＜100＞、＜111＞单晶Si片不同电阻率、不同晶向的样品研究了粗糙度和腐蚀速率,得出重要结论.此研究对正确使用rMAH腐蚀液有重要指导意义.     

基于TMAH溶液的PN结自停止腐蚀的研究

MEMS器件的性能与尺寸密切相关.介绍了一种精确控制器件尺寸的各向异性腐蚀方法--基于改进TMAH溶液的PN结自停止腐蚀.这种方法几乎不刻蚀铝,从而与CMOS工艺良好地兼容.应用这种办法正面腐蚀,成功释放结构,尺寸与设计比较符合,证明了这种方法的可行性及易操作性.     

基于硅(111)晶面腐蚀的可控在线细化工艺及其对硅纳米线电学性能的改善

Nanoscale refinement on a (100) oriented silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer was introduced by using tetra-methyl-ammonium hydroxide (TMAH, 25 wt%) anisotropic silicon etchant, with temperature kept at 50 ℃ to achieve precise etching of the (111) crystal plane. Specifically for a silicon nanowire (SiNW) with oxide sidewall protection, the in situ TMAH process enabled effective size reduction in both lateral (2.3 nm/min) and vertical (1.7 nm/min) dimensions. A sub-50 nm SiNW with a length of microns with uniform triangular cross-section was achieved accordingly, yielding enhanced field effect transistor (FET) characteristics in comparison with its 100 nm-wide pre-refining counterpart, which demonstrated the feasibility of this highly controllable refinement process. Detailed examination revealed that the high surface quality of the (111) plane, as well as the bulk depletion property should be the causes of this electrical enhancement, which implies the great potential of the as-made cost-effective SiNW FET device in many fields.     

Non-chromatographic atomic spectrometric methods in speciation analysis: A review

In recent years, knowledge of the different chemical forms of the elements has gained increasing importance. There has been significant progress in methods that hyphenate chromatographic separations with atomic spectrometry. These hyphenated methods can provide the most complete information on the species distribution and even structure. However, they can be lengthy, relatively costly and difficult to bring to the routine. On the other hand, it is important to remember that chromatographic techniques represent only a minor part of the separation procedures available and, in certain cases, the application of basic chemistry to sample treatments can give quantitative information about specific chemical forms. In this sense, non-chromatographic procedures can provide methods that offer sufficient information on the elemental speciation for a series of situations. Moreover, these non-chromatographic strategies can be less time consuming, more cost effective and available, and present competitive limits of detection. Thus, non-chromatographic speciation analysis continues to be a promising research area and has been applied to the development of several methodologies that facilitate this type of analytical approach. In view of their importance, the present work overviews and discusses different non-chromatographic methods as alternatives for the speciation analysis of clinical, environmental and food samples using atomic spectrometry for detection.     

High-performance PIN photodiodes on TMAH thinned silicon wafers

The electro-optical characteristics of PIN photodiodes fabricated on high-resistivity silicon substrates locally thinned by bulk micromachining techniques are discussed. Experimental results and numerical simulations demonstrate that devices fabricated by the proposed approach have leakage current, quantum efficiency and speed performance comparable to the best commercially available Si PIN photodiodes, with the additional advantage of possible back-side illumination, making them suitable for the implementation of two-dimensional arrays having a read-out electronic chip connected to the front-side.     

Texturization of mono-crystalline silicon solar cells in TMAH without the addition of surfactant

Texturization of mono-crystalline silicon solar cell by chemical anisotropic etching is still a key issue due to metal ions contamination and consumption of large amount of isopropyl alcohol (IPA) in a conventional mixture of potassium hydroxide (KOH) or sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and IPA. In this study, etching was performed on (100) silicon wafers using silicon-dissolved tetramethylammonium hydroxide (TMAH) solutions without addition of surfactant. Experiments were carried out in different TMAH concentration solutions at different temperatures for different etching time. The surface phenomena, etching rates, surface morphology and surface reflectance have been analyzed. Experimental results show that the resulted surface covered with uniform pyramids can be realized due to small changes of etching rates during the etching process. The etching mechanism has been explained basing on the experimental results and the theoretical considerations. It was suggested that all the components in the TMAH solutions play important roles in the etching process. Moreover, TMA+ ions may increase the wettability of the textured surface. A good textured surface can be obtained on conditions that the absorption of OH- /H2O is equilibrium with that of TMA+/SiO2(OH)22-.