Fabrication of NEMS device

There are three Basic building blocks in NEMS technology.

 Deposition processes.
 Lithography.
 Etching processes

DEPOSITION PROCESS:
One of the basic building blocks in NEMS processing is the ability to deposit
thin films of materials.
Thin films of thickness of about few nm to about 100 nm.
Chemical methods used in NEMS deposition process.
o Chemical vapour deposition.
o Epitaxy.

Chemical vapour deposition:

Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is a chemical process used to produce
high-purity, high-performance solid materials. The process is often used in
the semiconductor industry to produce thin films. In typical CVD,
the wafer (substrate) is exposed to one or more volatile precursors,
which react and/orde compose on the substrate surface to produce the
desired deposit. Frequently, volatile by-products are also produced, which
are removed by gas flow through the reaction chamber.
Microfabrication processes widely use CVD to deposit materials in various
forms, including: monocrystalline, polycrystalline, amorphous, and epitaxia.
CVD is practiced in a variety of formats. These processes generally differ in the means by
which chemical reactions are initiated.
Classified by operating pressure:

 Atmospheric pressure CVD (APCVD) – CVD at atmospheric pressure.

 Low-pressure CVD (LPCVD) – CVD at sub-atmospheric
[1]
pressures. Reduced pressures tend to reduce unwanted gas-phase
reactions and improve film uniformity across the wafer.
 Ultrahigh vacuum CVD (UHVCVD) – CVD at very low pressure, typically
below 10−6 Pa(~10−8 torr). Note that in other fields, a lower division
between high and ultra-high vacuum is common, often 10−7 Pa. Most
modern CVD is either LPCVD or UHVCVD.
  Classified by physical characteristics of vapor:

 Aerosol assisted CVD (AACVD) – CVD in which the precursors are

transported to the substrate by means of a liquid/gas aerosol, which
can be generated ultrasonically. This technique is suitable for use with
non-volatile precursors.
 Direct liquid injection CVD (DLICVD) – CVD in which the precursors are
in liquid form (liquid or solid dissolved in a convenient solvent). Liquid
solutions are injected in a vaporization chamber towards injectors
(typically car injectors). The precursor vapors are then transported to
the substrate as in classical CVD. This technique is suitable for use on
liquid or solid precursors. High growth rates can be reached using this
technique.

CVD is commonly used to deposit conformal films. A variety of applications

for such films exist.Gallium arsenide is used in some integrated circuits (ICs).
Amorphous polysilicon is used in photovoltaic devices.
Certain carbides and nitrides confer wear-resistance. Polycrystalline silicon is
deposited from trichlorosilane (SiHCl3) or silane (SiH4), using the following
reactions:
SiH3Cl → Si + H2 + HCl
SiH4 → Si + 2 H2
This reaction is usually performed in LPCVD systems, with either pure silane
feedstock, or a solution of silane with 70–80% nitrogen. Temperatures
between 600 and 650 °C and pressures between 25 and 150 Pa yield a
growth rate between 10 and 20 nm per minute.
Epitaxial Growth
Epitaxy means the growth of a single crystal film on top of a crystalline
substrate.For most thin film applications (hard and soft coatings, optical
coatings, protective coatings) it is of little importance.
However, for semiconductor thin film technology it is crucial

Types of Epitaxy
Homoepitaxy:
 The film and the substrate are the same material.
 Often used in Si on Si growth.
 Epitaxially grown layers are purer than the substrate and can be
doped independently of it.

Heteroepitaxy:
 Trying to grow a layer of a different material on top of a substrate
leads to unmatched lattice parameters.
 This will cause strained or relaxed growth and can lead to interfacial
defects.
 Such deviations from normal would lead to changes in the electronic,
optic, thermal and mechanical properties of the films.
 HeteroepitaxyFilm and substrate are different materials.
 Eg: AlAs on GaAs for optoelectronic structures and band gap
engineered devices.
Lithography :

Lithography in the NEMS context is typically the transfer of a pattern to a

photosensitive material by selective exposure to a radiation source such as
light.
A photosensitive material is a material that experiences a change in its
physical properties .Photolithography is the standard process to transfer a
pattern, which has been designed with computer-aided-engineering (CAE)
software packages, on to a certain material. The process sequence is
illustrated in Fig. 1.4. A mask with the desired pattern is created. The mask is
a glass plate with a patterned opaque layer (typically chromium) on the
surface. Electron-beam lithography is used to write the mask pattern from
the CAE data. In the photolithographic process, a photoresist layer
(photostructurable polymer) is spin-coated on to the material to be
patterned. Next, the photoresist layer is exposed to ultraviolet (UV) light
through the mask. This step is done in a mask aligner, in which mask and wafer
are aligned with each other before the subsequent exposure step is
performed. Depending on the mask aligner generation, mask and substrate
are brought in contact or close proximity (contact and proximity printing) or
the image of the mask is projected (projection printing) on to the photoresist-
coated substrate. Depending on whether positive or negative photoresist
was used, the exposed or the unexposed photoresist areas, respectively, are
removed during the resist development process.when exposed to a radiation
source.
Etching
The two different categories of etching processes include wet etching using
liquid chemicals and dry etching using gas-phase chemistry. Both methods
can be either isotropic, i.e. provide the same etch rate in all directions, or
anisotropic, i.e. provide different etch rates in different directions (see Fig.
1.5). The important criteria for selecting a particular etching process
encompass the material etch rate, the selectivity for the material to be
etched, and the isotropy/anisotropy of the etching process. An overview on
various etching chemistries used in microfabrication can be found in []. Wet
etching is usually isotropic with the important exception of anisotropic silicon
wet etching in, e.g., alkaline solutions, such as potassium hydroxide
Moreover, wet etching typically provides a better etch selectivity for the
material to be etched in comparison with neighboring other materials. An
example includes wet etching of silicon dioxide using hydrofluoric acid-based
chemistries. SiO2 is isotropically etched in dilute hydrofluoric acid (HF–H2O)
or buffered oxide etch, BOE (HF–NH4F). Typical etch rates for high-quality
(thermally grown) silicon dioxide films are 0.1 _m/min in BOE.Dry etching, on
the other hand, is often anisotropic, resulting in a better pattern transfer, as
mask underetching is avoided .Therefore, anisotropic dry etching processes,
such as reactive ion etching (RIE), of thin-film materials are verycommon in the
microelectronics industry. In an RIE system, reactive ions are generatedin a
plasma and are accelerated towards the surface to be etched, thus
providingdirectional etching characteristics. Higher ion energies typically
result in more anisotropic etching characteristics, but also in reduced etching
selectivity.