Strain selectivity of SiGe wet chemical etchants

2008/01/28 by Marcus Stoffel, M. Stoffel, A. Malachias +23
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) #Other Condensed Matter (cond-mat.other) #Semiconductor materials and devices #Semiconductor materials and interfaces #Silicon and Solar Cell Technologies #cond-mat.mtrl-sci #cond-mat.other

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.0801.4211

13 pages, 4 figures, regular paper

arxiv created 2008/01/28 · openalex publication_date 2008/01/28 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

We investigate the effect of strain on the etching rate of two SiGe wet etchants, namely NH4OH:H2O2 and H2O2. For both etchants, we found that there is no appreciable strain selectivity, i.e. the etching rates do not depend on the actual strain state in the SiGe films. Instead, for the NH4OH:H2O2 solution, the rates are primarily determined by the Ge content. Finally, we show that both etchants are isotropic with no preferential etching of particular facets.

Related

• Selective molecular gas phase etching in layered high aspect-ratio nanostructures for semiconductor processing. II. Experiments and model validation
• A Study of Selectively Digital Etching Silicon-Germanium with Nitric and Hydrofluoric Acids
• Selective molecular gas phase etching in layered high aspect-ratio nanostructures for semiconductor processing. I. Modeling framework and simulation
• Sub-10-micron thick Ge thin films from bulk-Ge substrates via a wet etching method
• Spontaneous Nanopatterning and Strain Relaxation in SiGe Layers Grown by Oxidative Solid Phase Epitaxy