Plasma-based nanomanufacturing under atmospheric pressure

Abstract

Atmospheric-pressure plasma manufacturing is a very promising technique fabricate optical components and substrates for electronic devices with high form accuracy and high efficiency. The thickness correction of SOI and quartz crystal wafers by numerically controlled atmospheric-pressure plasma etching, which named numerically controlled plasma chemical vaporization machining (NC-PCVM), enabled us to obtain thickness uniformity with nanometer-level accuracy without introducing subsurface electronic defects. A numerically controlled sacrificial oxidation process using a multielectrode array system demonstrated its potential for realizing the high-throughput thickness correction of SOI wafers. A 4H-SiC (0001) surface, which is a difficult-to-machine material because of its hardness and chemical inertness, was processed by plasma-assisted dry polishing using a CeO2 abrasive, and an atomically smooth step and terrace structure without lattice strain was obtained.