Vapor deposition, wafer fabrication

A schematic view of the cold cathode fabrication process is shown in Fig. 10.18. The cold cathode is fabricated by low pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) of 1.5 pm of non-doped polysilicon on a silicon wafer or a metallized glass substrate. The topmost micrometer of polysilicon is then anodized (10 mA cnT2, 30 s) in ethanoic HF under illumination. This results in a porous layer with inclusions of larger silicon crystallites, due to faster pore formation along grain boundaries. After anodization the porous layer is oxidized (700 °C, 60 min) and a semi-transparent (10 nm) gold film is deposited as a top electrode. 

The steam reformer is a serpentine channel with a channel width of 1000 fim and depth of 230 fim (Figure 15). Four reformers were fabricated per single 100 mm silicon wafer polished on both sides. In the procedure employed to fabricate the reactors, plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) was used to deposit silicon nitride, an etch stop for a silicon wet etch later in the process, on both sides of the wafer. Next, the desired pattern was transferred to the back of the wafer using photolithography, and the silicon nitride was plasma etched. Potassium hydroxide was then used to etch the exposed silicon to the desired depth. Copper, approximately 33 nm thick, which was used as the reforming catalyst, was then deposited by sputter deposition. The reactor inlet was made by etching a 1 mm hole into the end... 

The wafers were coated with silicon dioxide (400 nm thickness) and silicon nitride by low pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) alternately. The chips were fabricated by photolithography and etching. The catalyst (for the application Pt) was introduced as a wire (150 pm thickness), which was heated resistively for igniting the reaction. The ignition of the reaction occurred at 100 °C and complete conversion was achieved at a stochiometric ratio of the reacting species generating a thermal power of 72 W (Figure 2.28). 

The SiOx films we fabricated was done by physical vapor deposition of SiO with controlled oxygen admission in an oil-free vacuum apparatus at 1 x 10 mbar base pressure. The experimental set-up is shown schematically in Figure 19.4. Thermal evaporation of SiO from two Ta boats was directed to rotating 10 cm Si(lOO) wafer substrates heated by rear illumination with tungsten halide lamps. To achieve uniform film thickness over the large area of the Si wafer, the angle between the evaporators and substrate center was fixed at 53°, while the distance between the substrate plane and evaporator plane was kept at 20 cm. Routinely, films of 100 run... 

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