Oxygen reactive ion etching of polymers: profile evolution and process mechanisms

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Abstract
Oxygen plasmas either in a reactive ion etching reactor or in a reactive ion beam etcher are used to demonstrate the capability to produce sub-half-micron features in photoresists with high aspect ratios in multi-level technique. Lower local etch rates for structures with increasing aspect ratios are evaluated. The geometry limited flux of neutrals into the structures leads to decreasing etch rates of the bottom resist with increasing aspect ratio. The role of sidewall passivation films for highly anisotropic etching is discussed. Sidewall passivation films are extremely stable with respect to further processing. Even highly reactive plasmas are not able to remove the passivating films completely. In all our experiments of re sist patterning in 02-plasmas we saw that highly anisotropic etching works only with a sidewall passivating layer.

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