Thermal stability of dry etch damage in SiC

摘要

The introduction of dry etch damage intonhyphen;type SiC has been measured by monitoring the sheet resistance after exposure to Ar plasmas under both reactive ion etching and electron cyclotron resonance conditions. The threshold rf powers for measurable resistance changes in 1 mgr;m thick films are sim;250 W for reactive ion etching (RIE) conditions, and sim;150 W for electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) conditions. A major annealing stage occurs with an activation energy of sim;3.4 eV, but some damage remains even after 1050thinsp;deg;C annealing. copy;1996 American Institute of Physics.