Dual erosion phases in HNA etched Si surfaces

Abstract

Morphological studies were done on Si (100) surfaces after etching with HNA (HF, HNO3 and CH3COOH) for seven different time intervals till 600s. The resulting morphology was studied using atomic force microscopy (AFM). The images obtained were analyzed using scaling theory. Large number of images from different regions of the same surface were used to find the average behavior of each scaling parameter. The roughness at different length scales was extracted and quantified from AFM measurements. Results indicated two erosion phases of the evolving surface which became evident from power spectral density (PSD) and interface width analysis of the etched surfaces