Re: Al oxide removal ([email protected])

Barry:

We have found that the Al surface must be Ar sputter cleaned before a
contacting material is deposited without breaking vacuum.

Mike Gaitan, NIST

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From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
On Behalf Of [email protected]
Sent: Saturday, March 30, 2002 9:01 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: mems-talk digest, Vol 1 #239 - 1 msg

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Today's Topics:

   1. Al oxide removal ([email protected])

--__--__--

Message: 1
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2002 12:07:31 -0500
Subject: [mems-talk] Al oxide removal
Reply-To: [email protected]

Dear MEMS coworkers,

We currently utilize foundry service to fabricate our MEMS platform, and
we
functionalize the platform by coating a proprietary material. The
existing
platform design calls for, fresh out of foundry, a SiO2 top layer with
contact openings to the underlying Al.

The issue we run into is that the exposed Al is easily oxidized and the
contact resistance varies from sample to sample. We have tried using
chemistry removing the aluminum oxide layer prior to functionalization.
Yet
the oxidation happens so rapidly that a  thin insulating oxide is formed
between sample transfer (in air), so we alleviated but not eliminated
the
reproducibility difficulty.

I appreciate any insights.

Regards,

Barry Chen


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