Generally, black silicon means that the surface of the
silicon is very rough and thus light is scattered at
the surface. You will realize this if you do AFM to get
surface profile. CF4 will etch all Si based material. I
used to get black silicon during RIE after CMP process
because I didn't throughly clean the surface with
copious amounts of DI water and rubbing of sponge.

Kevin Kim


Quoting Isaac Wing Tak Chan :

> Dear members,
>
>       Does anyone have background information of how
black silicon can
> be formed in RIE system? In my case, see black
silicon on silicon wafer
> after long (more than 10mins) CF4/H2 plasma exposure.
The surface is also
> powdery with this black stuff. If you know anything
about it or any good
> reference paper, would you please let me know? Thanks
a lot.
>
>
> Yours sincerely,
>
> Isaac Chan
>
> Ph.D. Candidate
> Dept. Electrical & Computer Engineering
> University of Waterloo
> 200 University Ave. W
> Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
> N2L 3G1
> Tel: (519) 729-6409, ext. 6014
> Fax: (519) 746-6321
> iwchan@venus.uwaterloo.ca
> http://www.ece.uwaterloo.ca/~a-sidic
>
>
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