Equipment Catalog

This ICP Reactive Ion Etching system (Oxford Instruments Plasmalab 100) has an inductively coupled plasma source for high-speed, anisotropic plasma etching. It uses chlorine- and bromine-based chemistries to etch a wide variety of materials including metals (e.g., chromium, aluminum), compound semiconductors, as well as silicon (with very smooth sidewalls) at shallow (100s of nm) depths. This system is equipped with a pulsed/low frequency power generator, which significantly reduces the “notching” effect in silicon-on-insulator photonic devices fabrication. This system has two types (laser interferometer and optical spectrameter) of endpoint detectors to help achieving an accurate etching depth.