Femtosecond laser-induced formation of submicrometer spikes on a semiconductor substrate
AssigneePresident and Fellows of Harvard College
InventorsEric Mazur, Mengyan Shen
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Abstract
The present invention generally provides semiconductor substrates having submicron-sized surface features generated by irradiating the surface with ultra short laser pulses. In one aspect, a method of processing a semiconductor substrate is disclosed that includes placing at least a portion of a surface of the substrate in contact with a fluid, and exposing that surface portion to one or more femtosecond pulses so as to modify the topography of that portion. The modification can include, e.g., generating a plurality of submicron-sized spikes in an upper layer of the surface.
Claims33
A method of processing a semiconductor substrate, comprising
- placing at least a portion of a surface of the semiconductor substrate in contact with a fluid, and
- exposing said surface portion to one or more short laser pulses so as to modify surface topography of that portion.
A semiconductor substrate, comprising
- a surface layer having at least a portion exhibiting an undulating topography characterized by a plurality of submicron-sized features having an average height less than about 1 micrometer and an average width in a range of about 100 nm to about 500 nm.
A method of processing a silicon substrate, comprising:
- irradiating at least a portion of a semiconductor surface with one or more femto-second laser pulses having a center wavelength in a range of about 400 nm to less than about 800 nm so as to generate a plurality of submicron-sized spikes within a layer of said surface.
A method of processing a semiconductor substrate, comprising
- disposing a solid substance having an electron-donating constituent on at least a portion of a surface of the substrate,
- irradiating said surface portion with one or more pulses having pulse widths in a range of about 50 fs to about 500 fs so as to generate a plurality of inclusions containing said electron-donating constituent in a surface layer of the substrate.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.