Sputtering yields and surface chemical modification of tin-doped indium oxide in hydrocarbon-based plasma etching

Journal Article · Sun Nov 15 04:00:00 EST 2015 · Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology. A, Vacuum, Surfaces and Films

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1116/1.4927125· OSTI ID:22479656

Li, Hu; Karahashi, Kazuhiro; Hamaguchi, Satoshi ^[1]; Fukasawa, Masanaga; Nagahata, Kazunori; Tatsumi, Tetsuya ^[2]

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1. Center for Atomic and Molecular Technologies, Osaka University, Yamadaoka 2-1, Suita 565-0871 (Japan)
2. Device and Material R&D Group, RDS Platform, Sony Corporation, Kanagawa 243-0014 (Japan)

Sputtering yields and surface chemical compositions of tin-doped indium oxide (or indium tin oxide, ITO) by CH{sup +}, CH{sub 3}{sup +}, and inert-gas ion (He{sup +}, Ne{sup +}, and Ar{sup +}) incidence have been obtained experimentally with the use of a mass-selected ion beam system and in-situ x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. It has been found that etching of ITO is chemically enhanced by energetic incidence of hydrocarbon (CH{sub x}{sup +}) ions. At high incident energy incidence, it appears that carbon of incident ions predominantly reduce indium (In) of ITO and the ITO sputtering yields by CH{sup +} and CH{sub 3}{sup +} ions are found to be essentially equal. At lower incident energy (less than 500 eV or so), however, a hydrogen effect on ITO reduction is more pronounced and the ITO surface is more reduced by CH{sub 3}{sup +} ions than CH{sup +} ions. Although the surface is covered more with metallic In by low-energy incident CH{sub 3}{sup +} ions than CH{sup +} ions and metallic In is in general less resistant against physical sputtering than its oxide, the ITO sputtering yield by incident CH{sub 3}{sup +} ions is found to be lower than that by incident CH{sup +} ions in this energy range. A postulation to account for the relation between the observed sputtering yield and reduction of the ITO surface is also presented. The results presented here offer a better understanding of elementary surface reactions observed in reactive ion etching processes of ITO by hydrocarbon plasmas.

• OSTI ID: 22479656
• Journal Information: Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology. A, Vacuum, Surfaces and Films, Journal Name: Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology. A, Vacuum, Surfaces and Films Journal Issue: 6 Vol. 33; ISSN 0734-2101; ISSN JVTAD6
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
ARGON IONS
DOPED MATERIALS
ETCHING
EV RANGE 10-100
HELIUM IONS
HYDROCARBONS
INDIUM OXIDES
ION BEAMS
NEON IONS
PLASMA
SPUTTERING
SURFACES
TIN OXIDES
X-RAY PHOTOELECTRON SPECTROSCOPY