Surface morphology during ion etching The influence of redeposition

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Abstract
Ion beam etching is a well-established technique for micro-machining surfaces. It is used extensively in surface analysis with techniques such as Auger electron spectroscopy, ESCA and SIMS, both for surface cleaning and composition-depth profiling. It is also a potentially important technique in semiconductor device fabrication, where the provision of vertical grooves is required and where redeposition is a potentially serious problem. In this paper a two-dimensional theory of the build-up of material redeposited during ion etching is presented, together with complementary experimental results which demonstrate the extent of the problem in the production of certain devices. The analysis is based on the method of characteristics, as in the theory of nonlinear waves, and computational examples are used to investigate the build-up of material on initially rectangular grooves as a function of beam energy and groove width.

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