Advanced Wet Etch for Emer­ging Mate­rials

The objec­tive of this project is to re­search and co-develop advanced wet etching processes for a broad range of emerging semi­con­ductor mate­rials rele­vant to next-gener­a­tion appli­ca­tions in photonics, MEMS, quantum tech­nolo­gies, and wide bandgap (WBG) devices.

The project aims to estab­lish a state-of-the-art wet process­ing exper­tise, enabling high-throughput, high-unifor­mity batch process­ing with precise control of chem­ical delivery, temper­a­ture, and process condi­tions.

Target mate­rial classes include (but are not limited to):

• Ferro­elec­tric and electro-optic mate­rials (e.g., Lithium Niobate, AlN)
• Wide bandgap semi­con­duc­tors (e.g., SiC, GaN)
• Piezo­elec­tric and MEMS mate­rials (e.g., AlScN, PZT)
• Emerging quantum mate­rials (e.g., thin films, defect-engi­neered mate­rials)
• Advanced dielec­tric and photonic mate­rials (e.g., TFLN, Ge)

Key chal­lenges to be addressed include:

• Achieving high etch unifor­mity and repeata­bility at batch scale
• Control­ling etch selec­tivity across hetero­ge­neous mate­rial stacks
• Mini­mizing surface rough­ness and subsur­face damage crit­ical for optical and quantum perfor­mance
• Managing complex chemistries and reac­tion kinetics for new mate­rials
• Enabling flex­ible multi-mate­rial process­ing within a unified plat­form
• Reducing chem­ical consump­tion and envi­ron­mental impact

The scope of work may include:

• Provi­sion, instal­la­tion and commis­sioning of advanced batch wet process­ing equip­ment within SAL clean­room by the project partner.
• Re­search and Co-devel­op­ment of wet etch processes across multiple emerging mate­rial systems
• Process para­meter opti­miza­tion (chem­ical compo­si­tion, temper­a­ture, flow dynamics, wafer handling)
• Mate­rial and surface char­ac­ter­i­za­tion (etch rate, selec­tivity, morphology, defec­tivity)
• Devel­op­ment of inte­grated process modules (etch, clean, surface condi­tioning)
• Imple­men­ta­tion of process control strate­gies (e.g., endpoint detec­tion, inline moni­toring)
• Inte­gra­tion into device fabri­ca­tion flows across photonics, MEMS, quantum, and WBG appli­ca­tions
• Corre­la­tion of process condi­tions with device-level perfor­mance and reli­a­bility

The project is struc­tured as a collab­o­ra­tive co-devel­op­ment effort, inviting equip­ment providers to jointly re­search, develop and vali­date scal­able process solu­tions.