Etching Techniques

A wide range of wet and dry etching processes are available in the clean rooms at ZMN. The wet chemical processes cover a wide range of cleaning and etching processes for the materials used at ZMN. The center's wet chemistry line enables a variety of cleaning processes (RCA + NTA, Caro, solvent cleaning, Tickopur/Stammopur, HF/BOE, etc.) as well as substrate and layer etching (Si and its compounds as well as all common metals).

Plasma-based etching processes with fluorine- and chlorine-containing reactive gases complement the range of structuring options for nanostructures in thin films up to three-dimensional micromechanical, optical, and fluidic structures. The combination of physical and chemical sub-processes enables precise control of material removal and structure formation.