The Effects of Surface Chemistry on Plasma Processing

The plasma processing of electronic materials depends on many variables. Among these are the temperature and the partial pressures in the gas phase. This talk will discuss recent efforts to understand this dependence by comparing the observed plasma etch rate with the thermodynamically predicted steady state chemical etch rate. Examples of the Cl2 etching of III-V materials such as GaAs and InP will be presented, although the fundamental concept contained in this simple model is generally applicable to a wide range of plasma processing chemical systems.