Recent Advances in Reactive Ion Etching and Applications of High-Aspect-Ratio Microfabrication

Dear Colleagues,

Reactive ion etching (RIE) is the dominating technology for micromachining semiconductors with a high aspect ratio (HAR). It has long been recognized as a powerful manufacturing tool and has been widely applied across different research fields and industrial sectors.

The semiconductor industry is continuously pushing to shrink lateral dimensions and to increase the aspect ratio of features while maintaining a cost advantage. This is driving new challenges in RIE processes to meet the demands of control feature-size variation and fabrication of HAR features in high-volume manufacturing. Atomic-scale modeling of physicochemical reactions, involving ion bombardment and neutral transport, scaling from two to three dimensions, critical dimensions uniformity over a large area, microloading effects, reactive ion etching lag, and aspect-ratio-dependent etching, are challenging experts in the field of plasma processing. Cryogenic etching, a ramped parameters approach, and pulsed bias etching processes can be proposed as boosting RIE technologies for the nanoscale fabrication of HAR features in the range of aspect ratio of 100:1 and beyond. Moreover, the matching of RIE with new lithographic and deposition techniques is addressing new challenges in processing.

This Special Issue will showcase research papers and review articles that focus on novel methodological developments in RIE and related techniques, such as deep reactive ion etching (DRIE), atomic layer etching (ALEt) and others on various materials (Si, Ge, SiC, diamond, III-V semiconductors, metals, etc.) and its use for a wide range of applications. HAR features at the nanoscale have been demonstrated as nanoporous film, nanowires, 3D objects, trenches, which are useful components for new architecture 3D circuits, microprocessing units, transistors, memories, sensors, micro and nano Vias, MEMS, photonics, thermoelectrics, microfluidics, bio-medical devices, batteries, optical lenses, mirrors, X-ray optics, etc.

Dr. Lucia Romano
Dr. Konstantins Jefimovs
Guest Editors

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