Reactivity enhancement in ion beam etcher

Abstract

A chemically assisted reactive ion beam etching (CAME) system for fabricating a slanted surface-relief structure in a material layer includes an reactive ion source generator configured to generate a plasma using a first reactive gas; one or more aligned collimator grids configured to extract and accelerate at least some of the reactive ions in the plasma to form a collimated reactive ion beam towards the material layer; and a gas ring configured to inject a second reactive gas onto the material layer. The plasma includes reactive ions of the first reactive gas that react with the material layer to generate volatile materials. The second reactive gas also reacts with the material layer. The collimated reactive ion beam and the second reactive gas etch the material layer both physically and chemically to form the slanted surface-relief structure in the material layer.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.