Ü. Sökmen

Capabilities of ICP-RIE cryogenic dry etching of silicon: review of exemplary microstructures

Inductively coupled plasma (ICP) cryogenic dry etching was used to etch submicron pores, nano contact lines, submicron diameter pillars, thin and thick cantilevers, membrane structures and anisotropic deep structures with high aspect ratios in silicon for bio-nanoelectronics, optoelectronics and nano-micro electromechanical systems (NMEMS). The ICP cryogenic dry etching gives us the advantage of switching plasmas between etch rates of 13 nm min−1 and 4 µm min−1 for submicron pores and for membrane structures, respectively. A very thin photoresist mask can endure at −75 °C even during etching 70 µm deep for cantilevers and 300 µm deep for membrane structures. Coating the backsides of silicon membrane substrates with a thin photoresist film inhibited the lateral etching of cantilevers during their front release. Between −95 °C and −140 °C, we realized crystallographic-plane-dependent etching that creates facets only at the etch profile bottom. By varying the oxygen content and the process temperature, we achieved good control over the shape of the etched structures. The formation of black silicon during membrane etching down to 300 µm was delayed by reducing the oxygen content.

Evaluation of resonating Si cantilevers sputter-deposited with AlN piezoelectric thin films for mass sensing applications

We report on a micro-machined resonator for mass sensing applications which is based on a silicon cantilever excited with a sputter-deposited piezoelectric aluminium nitride (AlN) thin film actuator. An inductively coupled plasma (ICP) cryogenic dry etching process was applied for the micro-machining of the silicon substrate. A shift in resonance frequency was observed, which was proportional to a mass deposited in an e-beam evaporation process on top. We had a mass sensing limit of 5.2 ng. The measurements from the cantilevers of the two arrays revealed a quality factor of 155–298 and a mass sensitivity of 120.34 ng Hz−1 for the first array, and a quality factor of 130–137 and a mass sensitivity of 104.38 ng Hz−1 for the second array. Furthermore, we managed to fabricate silicon cantilevers, which can be improved for the detection in the picogram range due to a reduction of the geometrical dimensions.

Gallium nitride heterostructures on 3D structured silicon

We investigated GaN-based heterostructures grown on three-dimensionally patterned Si(111) substrates by metal organic vapour phase epitaxy, with the goal of fabricating well controlled high quality, defect reduced GaN-based nanoLEDs. The high aspect ratios of such pillars minimize the influence of the lattice mismatched substrate and improve the material quality. In contrast to other approaches, we employed deep etched silicon substrates to achieve a controlled pillar growth. For that a special low temperature inductively coupled plasma etching process has been developed. InGaN/GaN multi-quantum-well structures have been incorporated into the pillars. We found a pronounced dependence of the morphology of the GaN structures on the size and pitch of the pillars. Spatially resolved optical properties of the structures are analysed by cathodoluminescence.

Characterization and simulation of high-quality AlN-actuated resonant suspended beams

Micro-cantilevers and micro-bridges actuated by sputter-deposited aluminium nitride (AlN) thin films were measured with a scanning laser Doppler vibrometer up to 6 MHz, covering more than 10 resonance modes of different nature. A finite element model (FEM) was used to simulate the modal response of the micromachined structures. The comparison between experiment and simulation, regarding modal shapes and frequencies, resulted in an excellent agreement, what confirmed the quality of the structures. Finally, we point out, and illustrate with the help of micro-bridges, the importance for a locally tailored distribution of electrical excitation on the top surface of the device, in order to either optimize or cancel out the displacement of a given mode.

ICP cryogenic dry etching for shallow and deep etching in silicon

We achieved to etch nano- and deep structures in silicon using ICP-cryogenic dry etching process. We etched nanopores and nanocantilevers with an etch rate of 13 nm/min, nanopillars with an etch rate of 2.8 μm/min - 4.0 μm/min, membrane and cantilever structures with an etch rate of 4 μm/min and 3 μm/min, respectively. Nanopores and nanocantilevers are interesting structures for Bionanoelectronics. Nanopillars can be used as substrates/templates for the MOCVD growth of GaN nanoLEDs. They are the basic constituents of a nanoparticle balance and also of a thermoelectric generator. For the joining of the silicon wafers of the thermoelectric generator the low temperature joining technique can be used. Cantilevers can be used for sensing, e.g. as tactile cantilevers. They can be used also as resonator for mass sensing even in the subnanogram region. The actuation of the resonator can be done by using piezoelectric thin films on the cantilevers. The mass detection depends on the resonance frequency shift caused by loaded mass on the cantilevers. Such cantilevers are robust and easy to produce. The deep etching in silicon was done by using a photoresist mask and creating perpendicular and smooth sidewalls.

Comparison between AlN thin films with different crystal orientations for MEMS applications

Aluminium nitride (AlN) reactively sputter deposited from an aluminium target is an interesting compound material due to its CMOS compatible fabrication process and its piezoelectric properties. The crystal structure obtained during sputtering is a very importance criterion to obtain a good piezoelectric performance. To demonstrate this, we focused our investigations on two types of films. The first type shows a good c- axis orientation with round grain geometry. The second type is (101) oriented having a triangular grain shape. For measuring the out-of-plane displacements for dij determination, a MSV 400 Polytec scanning laser Doppler vibrometer was used. To obtain the piezoelectric constants d33 and d31 a fitting procedure between experimental and theoretical predicted results is used. Effective values for d33 and d31 in c-axis oriented films are about 3.0 pm/V and -1.0 pm/V, respectively. By contrast, films with (101) orientation show a lower effective longitudinal piezoelectric coefficients, consistent with this different orientation. Finally, both types of AlN layers were deposited on 640 μm long micro-cantilevers. The average displacement of the first mode on the vertical axis was about 12 nm for the film with good c -axis orientation and 0.3 nm for that with (101)- orientation when applying the same excitation.