Photoablation Studies of Polymers, Quartz, and Semiconductors with Vacuum Ultraviolet Laser Radiation

Excimer lasers sources of 193nm and 157 nm wavelength were used to obtain new photoablation etching rates for several materials of interest to the microelectronics industry. The harder 157nm radiation provided lower ablation rates and smaller threshold fluences for Polyimide and Polymethyl Methacrylate (PMMA) than with 193nm. For normally robust materials like quartz and Teflon (PTFE), the 157nm laser produced clean and smooth ablation sites with low threshold fluences of 620mJ/cm2 and 68mJ/cm2, respectively, features impossible to obtain with conventional excimer lasers at longer wavelengths. The data should help define new micromachining applications of these two materials for the electronic, optical or medical industry. Results are also reported for GaAs and InP based materials which are found to undergo moderate etch rates of 30-80nm/pulse at fluences of ∼3J/cm2, but suffer thermal damage and material segregation due to surface melting.