Scaled-Down c-Si and c-SiGe Wagon-Wheels for the Visualization of the Anisotropy and Selectivity of Wet-Chemical Etchants

Wet etching offers an advantage as a soft, damage-less method to remove sacrificial material with close to nanometer precision which has become critical for the fabrication of nanoscale structures. In order to develop such wet etching solutions, screening of etchant properties like selectivity and (an)isotropy has become vital. Since these etchants typically have low etch rates, sensitive test structures are required to evaluate their etching behavior. Therefore, scaled-down single-crystalline Si (c-Si) and SiGe (c-SiGe) wagon-wheels were fabricated. First, the sensitivity of the c-Si wagon-wheels to detect anisotropic behavior of crystalline silicon in the alkaline etchants TMAH and NH(4)OH was demonstrated. Distinctive wagon-wheel patterns, characteristic for each material/etchant pair, were observed by top-down scanning electron microscopy (SEM) after anisotropic wet etching. Similar trends in crystallographic plane-dependent etch rates were obtained for both Si(100) and Si(110) substrates. Secondly, the etching of both c-Si and c-Si(75)Ge(25) wagon-wheels in a typical selective etchant, peracetic acid (PAA), was evaluated. c-Si(75)Ge(25) etching in PAA resulted in isotropic etching. Selectivity values were calculated based on two methods: the first by measurement of the sidewall loss of the spokes of the wagon-wheel, the second, indirect method, through measurement of the spoke retraction lengths. Both methods give comparable values, but the latter method can only be used after a certain critical etching time, after which the spoke tips have evolved toward a sharp tip. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s11671-019-3114-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.