High-Density Hollow Cathode Plasma Etching for Field Emission Display Applications

AbstractThis paper investigates the characteristics of a newly developed high density hollow cathode plasma(HCP) system and its application for the etching of silicon wafers. We used SF6 and O2 gases in the HCP dry etch process. This paper demonstrates very high plasma density of 2 x 1012 cm-3 at a discharge current of 20 mA. Silicon etch rate of 1.3 x m/min was achieved with SF6/O2 plasma conditions of total gas pressure of 50 mTorr, gas flow rate of 40 sccm, and RF power of 200 W. This paper presents surface etching characteristics on a crystalline silicon wafer and large area cast type multicrystlline silicon wafer. We obtained field emitter tips size of less than 0.1 x m without any photomask step as well as with a conventional photolithography. Our experimental results can be applied to various display systems such as thin film growth and etching for TFT-LCDs, emitter tip formations for FEDs, and bright plasma discharge for PDP applications. In this research, we studied silicon etching properties by using the hollow cathode plasma system.