Structuring for micro- and nanosystem technology
Reactive Ion Etching (RIE) is a dry etching process that combines chemical and physical processes: The impact of ions in a sputtering process activates the substrate surface and supplies the energy necessary to allow a chemical reaction with the etching gas. FHR has many years of experience using this structuring process.
The etching gas and the surface material form a volatile reaction product in the process, which is removed via the vacuum system. This etching method is very attractive because the etching behavior can be controlled well: The process provides excellent control of uniformity, etching profiles, etching rates and selectivity, and both isotropic, i.e. direction-independent, as well as anisotropic, directed etching can be achieved.
When combined with special masks, reactive ion etching is the method of choice for generating structures for micro- and nano-system technology. Reactive ion etching is primarily used as a micro-structuring process in the semiconductor industry.
FHR offers systems that are suitable for processing substrates with a large surface area (the FHR.Line seires) and as a component of cluster tools for processing wafers (the FHR.Star series).
