Development of a Technological Route for the Silicon Microneedles Matrix Formation

• Main Authors: Chaplygin, Yury A., Putrya, Mikhail G., Paramonov, V. V., Osipova, T. V.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Subjects: curvature radius; Etching; microroughness; Oxidation; plasma chemical oxidation; Rapid thermal processing; Reproducibility of results; Semiconductor devices; Silicon; silicon field emitters; silicon microneedles; Vacuum technology
• ISSN: 2376-6565
• DOI: 10.1109/EIConRus49466.2020.9038950

This article shows a new technological approach for the formation of a silicon microneedles array with "smooth" side walls, a curvature radius less than 50 nm and a 3 μm of height. Usually, when sharpening the tip of the needle after forming the main profile using plasma etching, thermal silicon oxidation is being used. The results obtained in this case have a significant scatter of parameters. At this stage of the creating a microneedles array process, it is proposed to use the technology of plasma chemical oxidation (P)CO. A problem solution of the profile microroughness due to optimization of the isotropic silicon etching stage is also presented, and a technology has been developed to create a microneedles array in a single vacuum cycle. This technology made it possible to increase the reproducibility of the profile geometric characteristics more than 50% and halve the microneedles curvature radius. On semiconductor arrays created using the developed technology, various semiconductor devices can be formed, including silicon field emitters.