Catalytic etch with magnetic direction control

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9105583-B2
Application number	US-201313735314-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jan 7, 2013
Priority date	Jan 7, 2013
Publication date	Aug 11, 2015
Grant date	Aug 11, 2015

Abstract

A material can be locally etched with arbitrary changes in the direction of the etch. A ferromagnetic-material-including catalytic particle is employed to etch the material. A wet etch chemical or a plasma condition can be employed in conjunction with the ferromagnetic-material-including catalytic particle to etch a material through a catalytic reaction between the catalytic particle and the material. During a catalytic etch process, a magnetic field is applied to the ferromagnetic-material-including catalytic particle to direct the movement of the particle to any direction, which is chosen so as to form a contiguous cavity having at least two cavity portions having different directions. The direction of the magnetic field can be controlled so as to form the contiguous cavity in a preplanned pattern, and each segment of the contiguous cavity can extend along an arbitrary direction.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of etching a material, said method comprising:
disposing at least one ferromagnetic-material-including catalytic particle on a material;
performing a catalytic etch process on said material by activating said at least one ferromagnetic-material-including catalytic particle with a chemical or a plasma; and
changing a direction of propagation of said at least one ferromagnetic-material-including catalytic particle during said catalytic etch proces…

Assignees

• IBM

Inventors

• Joseph Eric A
• Abraham David W
• Cheek Roger W
• Schrott Alejandro G
• Zhang Ying

Classifications

• H10P50/667

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H10P50/642 Primary

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H10P50/268

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H10P50/242

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H10P50/692 Primary

  Electricity · mapped topic