Low Pressure Plasmas and Microstructuring Technology

Over the last forty years, plasma supported processes have attracted ever - creasing interest, and now, all modern semiconductor devices undergo at least one plasma-involved processing step, starting from surface cleaning via coating to etching. In total, the range of the treated substrates covers some orders of magnitude: Trenches and linewidths of commercially available devices have - ready passed the boundary of 100 nm, decorative surface treatment will happen 2 in the mm range, and the upper limit is reached with surface protecting layers of windows which are coated with ?/4 layers against IR radiation. The rapid development of the semiconductor industry is inconceivable wi- outthegiantprogressintheplasmatechnology.Moore'slawisnotcarvedinto 1 stone, and not only the ITRS map is subject to change every ?ve years but also new branches develop and others mingle together. Moreover, the quality of conventional materials can be improved by plasma treatment:Cottonbecomesmorecrease-resistant,leathermoredurable,andthe shrinking of wool ?bers during the washing process can be signi?cantly reduced. To cut a long story short: More than 150 years after the discovery of the sputtering e?ect by Grove, plasma-based processes are about to spread out into new ?elds of research and application [1]--no wonder that the market for etching machines kept growing by an annual rate of 17 % up to the burst of the internet bubble, and it took only some years of recovery to continue the voyage [2].