Etching Technologies

Non-selective films are easily pattemable by wet or dry etching technology. 

Wilke, N., et al. 2004. Fabrication and characterization of microneedle electrode arrays using wet etch technologies. Abstract presented at EMN04, Paris. 

The whole process consists of a sequence of consecutive steps which allows separation into production modules. Some of them already exist and will just need slight modifications. Others have to be developed. At the very beginning, one makes use of the newly developed reel-to-reel etching technology for micro structured stainless-steel foils similar to the process described in [166], The structured foils are then coated with catalyst, structured again with a laser tool and finally folded by sheet metal forming to a reactor monolith. The readily mass-produced reactors will be sealed by laser welding. 

H. Muraoka, T. Ohashi, and Y. Sumitomo, Controlled preferential etching technology, in Semiconductor Silicon, H. R. Huff and R. R. Burgess (eds.), p. 327, Electrochemical Society, Pennington, 1973. 

In conclusion, the etching technology for SiC has been improved in recent years. Although it is now possible to etch a mesa for device fabrication, there are still some problems that need to be solved. These problems include roughness of the etch surfaces, deposition of a C-rich SiC layer on the etched surface and slow etch rates. 

Schwartz and H. Rohhins, Chemical etching of sihcon IV. etching technology, J. Electro chem. Soc. 123, pp. 1903 1909 (1976). 

Morgan (1985), Manos and Flamm (1989), Liebermarm and Lichtenberg (1994), Roth (2001), and Chen and Chang (2003). In the following sections we focus on plasma-chemical aspects of etching technology, in particular applications for IC fabrication. 

Lu and Wang [48] have reported that by using stainless steel plates as bipolar plates (electrodes) with the flow field machined with photochemical etching technology a micro-DMFC produce maximum power density of 62.5 mW cm" at 40°C and 100 mW cm at 60°C at atmospheric pressure. The active electrode area is only 1.625 cm. The power generated by the stainless steel DMFC is double to that of the Si-based DMFC which the authors had previously fabricated. 

In addition to the above processes, etching is also applied in the manufacture of microelectronic circuits where the materials etched are insulators, semiconductors, and polymers. Table 1 summarizes the combinations of etching technology available to the manufacturing engineer in terms of resolution required and size of component. 

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