Design and Fabrication of DRIE-Patterned Complex Needlelike Silicon Structures

Author

Gassend, Blaise Laurent Patrick ; Velásquez-García, Luis Fernando ; Akinwande, Akintunde Ibitayo

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng. & Comput. Sci., Massachusetts Inst. of Technol., Cambridge, MA, USA

Volume

19

Issue

3

fYear

2010

fDate

6/1/2010 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

589

Lastpage

598

Abstract

This paper reports the design and fabrication of high-aspect-ratio needlelike silicon structures that can have complex geometry. The structures are hundreds of micrometers tall with submicrometer-sharp protrusions, and they are fabricated using a series of passivated and unpassivated deep reactive-ion etching (DRIE) steps. A simple model is presented to predict the geometry of the structure based on the etch mask and the etch sequence. Model predictions are in good qualitative agreement with fabrication results, making it a useful design tool. The model is compared with literature reports on tapered DRIE.

Keywords

elemental semiconductors; microfabrication; passivation; semiconductor process modelling; silicon; sputter etching; 3D microfabrication; DRIE-patterned complex needlelike silicon structures; Si; etch mask; etch sequence; geometry modeling; high-aspect-ratio structure fabrication; passivated deep reactive-ion etching model; tapered DRIE; unpassivated DRIE step model; 3-D microfabrication; Deep reactive-ion etching (DRIE); microneedle;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Microelectromechanical Systems, Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1057-7157

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JMEMS.2010.2042680

Filename

5432963