The Combination of Direct and Confined Laser Ablation Mechanisms for the Selective Structuring of Thin Silicon Nitride Layers

Abstract

AbstractIn the production process of microelectronic devices and high efficiency solar cells, local openings in thin dielectric layers are required. Instead of photolithographic, laser based processing enables to open these dielectric layers locally in a low-cost mass production step. In this work, thin silicon nitride layers deposited on planar silicon wafers are processed by single infrared Gaussian shaped 660 fs laser pulses. The transparent silicon nitride layer, becoming absorptive at fluences higher than 0.3 J/cm2, is selectively removed by confined ablation at fluences below that value. At pulse peak fluences exceeding 1.0 J/cm2 a “SiNx island”is created by direct ablation in the spot center. In this article, theselective SiNx ablation by a combination of confined and direct laser ablation at the medium pulse peak fluence of 0.5 J/cm2 is investigated. To clarify the influence of the nonlinear absorption in the pulse center, the ablation behavior is investigated by time- and space-resolved pump-probe microscopy experiments. The results showphase changes in the silicon and in the silicon nitride in the first picoseconds after excitation, the ablation onset at around 10 ps and the subsequent mechanical materialmotion after a few nanoseconds. The actual silicon nitride layer removal starts after around 10 ns, whereas confined ablation processes are the driving mechanisms even in the nonlinearly absorbing spot center. A comparison of the energetic ablation efficiency of the SiNx layer system to further dielectric thin films shows no detrimental influence of the nonlinear absorbance