Etching and Lithography of Thin Film

**63**

**Chapter 4**

**Abstract**

deposition (CVD)

**1. Introduction**

devices (**Figure 1**).

related applications.

*Phuong V. Pham*

Graphene Surfaces

applications based on these technologies.

The New Etching Technologies of

Recently, graphene nanomaterial has drawn great interest due to its excellent electrical and optoelectrical properties. The etching of graphene based on plasma engineering to achieve atomically thin layer and extremely clean surface is a hot issue, which is highly desirable for industrial applications. The resided contaminants with high intrinsic roughness create the degradation of performance. The impurities are removed via surface cleaning method and layer-by-layer plasma etching via top-down lithography. Recently, new plasma technology-based etching causes no damage and secures its π-binding, which plays a key role in conductivity and other characteristics. Thus, this chapter presents the recent advances in new etching technologies for nanomaterials (e.g., graphene) as well as emerging

**Keywords:** graphene etching, plasma, ion beam, neutral beam, inductively coupled plasma (ICP), atomic layer etching (ALE), reactive ion etching (RIE), chemical vapor

An atomical graphene layer, which was invented in 2004 [1, 2], is considered as one of the best candidates for a broad application range with novel electronic and optoelectronic behaviors [1–21]. Unfortunately, the conductive graphene with no bandgap prevented its outstanding physical and chemical potentials. Thus, its bandgap tuning via various approaches is highly desired for extreme performance

Recently, etching technologies are emerging as one of the best efficient tools to tune a device's performance, thereby extending to many different fields in broadband [20–30]. The new approaches include the following: (i) inductively coupled plasma (ICP), neutral beam-based atomic layer etching (ALE), ion beam and reactive ion etching (RIE) [22–29], (ii) chemical vapor deposition (CVD) [30, 31] and (iii) thermally activated nanoparticles [32]. Plasma has used Si-integrated circuits for etching [22]. Among breakthroughs, plasma etching represents an important role in Si and non-Si (metal)-assisted devices. This chapter will present recent advances in new graphene etch technologies and their
