The influence of several surfactants in electrolyte during silicon electrochemical etching was reported in this paper. The
morphologies of macroporous silicon arrays in n-type silicon are strongly influenced by the chemical nature of these
additives. Conventional solvents (HF-Ethanol) with cationic (hexadecyl trimethyl ammonium chloride), non-ionic
(Triton-X100) and anionic (sodium alpha-olefin sulfonate) surfactants were experimented respectively. Prominent
differences in microchannel morphologies and apertures were observed depending on the nature of the additive. The
different behaviors of the additives during the electrochemical etching process were linked to the physical properties of
the additives. We found the electric double layer model of the reaction interface partially to explain these results.
However, not only the morphology of the microchannel but also the degree of electrochemical reaction is affected by
surfactant. The anionic surfactant is more suitable for the preparation of silicon microchannel plate with high aspect ratio
and pore size uniform. The depth of microchannels etched by photoelectrochemical etching silicon with anionic
surfactant is 264 μm, and the pore size is 2 μm.
Anisotropic etching of monocrystalline silicon plays an important role in Microsystems technology in the recent
years. TMAH, as one of the anisotropic etchants, is used to fabricate pores with square cross-section. Careful choice of
concentration, isopropyl alcohol additives and temperature of alkaline solution allows for certain crystallographic
directions to be preferentially etched. In this way, pores with square, eight-sided (octagonal) or rotated square shapes can
be attained and convert to each other. We show the etch selectivity on (100) and (110) planes in TMAH solution with
low concentration. The etch rates on (100) and (110) planes at different temperature and concentration has been
measured. The results indicated that the perfect orthogonal array of pores with sharp edges and corners can be obtained
at more than 40℃ in 1wt% TMAH solution. There is good etch selectivity on (110) surface and the etch rate on (110)
surface is slower than (100) surface under the condition.
The application fields of high aspect ratio Si microchannel arrays have increased considerably, for example, Si
microchannel plates, MEMS devices and so on. By the method of photo-electrochemical etching (PEC), Si microchannel
arrays are prepared using n-Si wafer covered by anti-corrosion layers and initiation array pits. The dark current intensity
curve of an n-type silicon wafer was presented in aqueous HF. The relationship among temperature, etching voltage and
carrier transportation was presented. The influences of temperature and etching voltage on the surface morphology of
silicon microchannel arrays were researched. The perfect Si microchannel arrays structure with the pore depth of 297 μm,
the pore size of 3 μm and the aspect ratio of 99 was obtained by the method of reducing etching voltage gradually.
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