Competitive effect between roughness and mask pattern on charging phenomena during plasma etching

In the plasma etching process, the edge roughness and mask pattern usually play a significant role in the deformation of holes under the influence of the charging effect. The competitive effect between these two factors has been investigated, focusing on the surface charging in a hexagonal array, with various values of roughness parameters (amplitude (A) and wavelength (W)) and distances between holes (L). A series of classical particle dynamic simulations of surface charging, surface etching and profile evolution were used to investigate the effect of roughness and pattern on charging. This study showed that various roughness and patterns (represented by different values of L) can significantly influence surface distributions of the electric-field (E-field) and the etching rates on the mask surface. The simulations also showed that (1) the shape of the pattern array influences the mask hole profile during the etching process, i.e. a hexagonal array pattern tends to deform the profile of a circular mask hole into a hexagonal hole; (2) pattern roughness is aggravated during the etching process. These factors were found to be significant only at a small feature pitch and may be ignored at a large feature pitch. Possible mechanisms of these results during the etching process are discussed. This work sheds light on the ways to maintain pattern integrity and further improve the quality of the pattern transfer onto the substrate.