Plasma nanofabrications and antireflection applications

Abstract

Plasma fabrication provides an approach to create nanostructured materials. We summarize recent studies on the quantum dot, nanograss, porous film and nanocone that have been developed using plasma methods to date and investigate the antireflection properties of the nanograss by spectrophotometric measurements and rigorous coupled-wave analyses. The results show that the reflection of silicon wafer etched for 40 min can be reduced below 4.5% in the range DUV to near-IR (200–900 nm), which agrees well with the simulation as the two-dimensional periodic pyramidal shapes with a period of 25 nm are used to mimic the nanograss surface. With these novel nanostructures and interesting properties, plasma processes will be increasingly significant to nanofabrication, especially when process compatibility is necessary for Si technology.