Lift-off free catalyst for metal assisted chemical etching of silicon in vapour phase

TL;DR

This paper introduces an electroplated bi-layer catalyst for vapour phase metal-assisted chemical etching of silicon, enabling high-aspect-ratio nanostructures with features down to 10 nm without using lift-off processes.

Contribution

It proposes a novel electroplated bi-layer catalyst as an alternative to lift-off, improving yield and enabling smaller nanostructures in silicon etching.

Findings

Successful etching in vapour phase with the new catalyst

Achieved feature sizes down to 10 nm

Eliminated the lift-off process bottleneck

Abstract

Metal-assisted chemical etching of silicon is a promising method for fabricating nanostructures with a high aspect ratio. To define a pattern for the catalyst, lift-off processes are commonly used. The lift-off step however is often a process bottle neck due to low yield, especially for smaller structures. To bypass the lift-off process, other methods such as electroplating can be utilized. In this paper, we suggest an electroplated bi-layer catalyst for vapour phase metal-assisted chemical etching as an alternative to the commonly utilised lift-off process. Samples were successfully etched in vapour, and resulting structures had feature sizes down to 10 nm.