Specific Process Knowledge/Etch/Etching of Polymer/Etch of Photo Resist using RIE

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Both RIE's (RIE1 and RIE2) for silicon based etching has been decommissioned

For a general introduction to RIE at Nanolab see RIE (Reactive Ion Etch)

Etching of polymer using RIE should only be done if you have no other options. The reason for this is that we want to keep our RIE's as clean as possible. However it can be used for stripping your resist after an etch if you need to keep your sample clean or you need to remove a very thin layer of resist before a RIE etch - like a descum. The process for etching away photoresist or other polymers involves an O2 plasma.Our standard cleaning recipe has been tested for a load of 50% resist on a wafer.

Some RIE recipes for etching of silicon nitride:

Name O2 flow N2 flow Pressure Power
clean05 99 sccm 20 sccm 300 mTorr 100 W


Expected result using the above RIE recipes for etching of photoresist:

You should be aware that the result can deviate quit a lot from what is written here depending on ex. the mask loading.

Name Tested with mask load: Etch rate Comments
Clean05 on RIE2 50% ~740 nm/min without being exposed to RIE before the photoresist etch