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arXiv · 2209.00150

Isotropic plasma-thermal atomic layer etching of aluminum nitride using SF$_6$ plasma and Al(CH$_3$)$_3$

Haozhe Wang·Azmain Hossain·David Catherall·Austin J. Minnich
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Abstract

We report the isotropic plasma atomic layer etching (ALE) of aluminum nitride using sequential exposures of SF$_6$ plasma and trimethylaluminum (Al(CH$_3$)$_3$, TMA). ALE was observed at temperatures greater than 200 $^\circ$C, with a maximum etch rate of 1.9 Å/cycle observed at 300 $^\circ$C as measured using ex-situ ellipsometry. After ALE, the etched surface was found to contain a lower concentration of oxygen compared to the original surface and exhibited a $\sim 35$% decrease in surface roughness. These findings have relevance for applications of AlN in nonlinear photonics and wide bandgap semiconductor devices.

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Haozhe Wang, Azmain Hossain, David Catherall, Austin J. Minnich. 2022-11-07. Isotropic plasma-thermal atomic layer etching of aluminum nitride using SF$_6$ plasma and Al(CH$_3$)$_3$. https://arxiv.org/abs/2209.00150

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