Decoupling small-scale roughness and long-range features on deep reactive ion etched silicon surfaces

Published

September 19, 2013

Author(s)

Frank W. DelRio, Lawrence H. Friedman, Michael S. Gaither, William A. Osborn, Robert F. Cook

Abstract

Roughness scaling of three different deep reactive ion etched (DRIE) silicon surfaces is investigated using atomic force microscopy. At small distances, height-height correlations H reveal power-law behavior with equal scaling exponents for all surfaces, suggesting self-affine roughness inherent to the DRIE process. In contrast, at large distances, H is sensitive to the etch process; the resulting root mean square roughnesses vary by a factor of five and are inversely related to the characteristic fracture strengths from associated test structures. Such relationships are only possible after the regular DRIE features are considered, as this prevents inflation of the roughness metrics.

Citation

Journal of Applied Physics

Pub Type

Journals

Citation

DelRio, F. , Friedman, L. , Gaither, M. , Osborn, W. and Cook, R. (2013), Decoupling small-scale roughness and long-range features on deep reactive ion etched silicon surfaces, Journal of Applied Physics (Accessed October 9, 2025)