Accurate Dry Etching with Fluorinated Gas for Two-dimensional Si Photonic Crystal

Anisortopic Si dry etching is usually carried out with chlorinated gases for electronic devices such as Si-LSIs. We had another look at Si dry etching with fluorinated gases in order to obtain an ideal air hole for two-dimensional Si photonic crystal. We simulated vertical Si etching, and showed the possibility that single crystal Si can be etched vertically with high selectivity to the etching mask using fluorinated gases. We investigated ECR etching with an SF6-CF4 mixture, and vertical Si etching was achieved at room temperature. High Si/Ni selectivity above 100 was also obtained. Two-dimensional Si photonic crystal with a photonic band gap between 1.25 and 1.51 μm was produced using SF6-CF4 ECR plasma and a thin Ni mask.