Towards improving the etch performance of KrF excimer laser micromachining on silicon material

Abstract

Excimer laser micromachining enables us to overcome the conventional lithography-based microfabrication limitations and simplify the process of creating three dimensional (3D) microstructures. The objective of these study are to investigate the relation between frequency (f), number of laser pulse (P), fluence (F) and their etch performance. This paper presents a parametric characterization study on silicon using KrF excimer laser micromachining. From the result, the etch rate change were recorded as the three major laser parameters (frequency, number of pulse and fluence) were varied. From the results, we found that the fluence has the highest influence on silicon etching rate due to factors of photothermal and photochemical, while frequency and the number of laser pulses do not change the energy.