LAUSR

Our interest in introducing oxygen and/or nitrogen atoms in CH4/H2/Ar plasma mixtures by means of organic precursors in the place of CH4 or by partly substituting O2 or N2O for H2 and thereby controlling carbon deposition and surface passivation when etching HgCdTe under low substrate bias conditions is investigated in this study. Using in situ ellipsometry, in situ x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy, and secondary electron microscopy (SEM), we show that nitromethane as a precursor and N2O substitution are attractive alternatives for the following: the absence of deposition although no bias is applied, equivalent postetch surface composition, and comparable performances in terms of etch rate and surface roughness for the latter. Such an approach could provide the soft dry etching conditions needed to reduce the pixel pitch of HgCdTe infrared photovoltaic detectors. The mechanisms that allow suppressing carbon deposition upon O2 or N2O substitution in CH4/H2/Ar plasmas are studied by combining plasma diagnostics (optical emission spectroscopy, actinometry, and ion flux measurements) and surface characterizations. First, using Si as a reference substrate, it is shown that deposition is suppressed whenever the O2 and N2O flow rate is half and twice that of CH4, respectively. Moreover, the study reveals that oxygen is the true etch reactant controlling the competition between film growth and etching in both substituted processes, whereas incorporation of nitrogen in the film upon N2O substitution favors its etching kinetics simultaneously. Second, on HgCdTe, deposition of a hydrocarbonitride film is observed at a low N2O/CH4 ratio (∼0.6). SEM and SEM-energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy imaging suggest that the film nucleates and grows preferentially on regions where the Cd removal mechanisms happen to be less efficient. At a high N2O/CH4 ratio (∼4), oxidation of the HgCdTe surface is observed.