Specific features of matching of a lower electrode and an RF bias generator for reactive ion etching of bulk substrates

This paper presents theoretical and experimental results on reactive ion etching of massive substrates in freon-14 with RF bias at the lower electrode. A hypothesis is proposed according to which a large-sized substrate violates the matching of the lower electrode with the RF generator by adding an additional reactive component to the impedance of the lower electrode. A numerical simulation of reactive ion etching with substrates of various sizes in a CF$_4$ environment is performed . The simulation results showed a significant increase in the reactive component of RF power at the lower electrode if the substrate area exceeds 50% of the area of the lower electrode, which is consistent with the proposed hypothesis. It has been experimentally shown that the etching of massive substrates violates the matching of the lower electrode with the RF generator. A special design of the substrate holder for massive substrates has been developed. It is shown that such a substrate holder significantly improves the matching of the RF generator with the lower electrode, especially when adding 0.3–0.9 l/h argon to the plasma-forming mixture.