THE DEPENDENCE OF NANOSTRUCTURE ETCH RATES ON FEATURE SIZE

The feature size dependence of plasma etch rates has been the focus of recent theoretical and experimental study [1-3]. The effect, already problematic at submicron dimensions, can limit attainable structures a nd is expected to increase in importance as lateral dimensions are fur ther reduced. In this paper, the models previously reported are develo ped further and a new nanostructure trench sectioning technique is use d to extend etch rate measurements to features with lateral dimensions below 100 nn. The experimental results are compared to the new models .