Reactive ion etching of NiFe thin films from first-principles study: A case study

Abstract

We propose a reactive ion etching (RIE) process design from first-principles calculations for implementation to NiFe thin-film etching. We consider the interaction between the magnetic metal surface NiFe and various gases. We found that the gases CO/NH3, or CH3OH/O 2(/NH3,H2) enable the NiFe surface to be etched. © 2005 The Japan Society of Applied Physics