Process for the production of a relief structure on a semiconductor material support

Process for the production of a relief structure on a semiconductor material support, the semiconductor support being produced from a wafer of semiconductor material having a planar face which is either substantially parallel to a main crystallographic plane where the semiconductor material is monocrystalline, or slightly inclined with respect to a crystallographic plane with the same indexes for all grains where the material is polycrystalline, said process comprising the steps of:

• implanting the wafer with ions by bombardment of the planar face of said wafer to create areas of gas microbubbles, the areas defining a profile in a cross-section of said wafer, each area being positioned with respect to said planar face at a depth dependent on the implantation energy of the ions received by a portion of the face facing said area and being of the same geometry as said portion of the face, said profile defining, on the side of the planar face, an upper region of the wafer constituting a thin film of the semiconductor material and, on the side opposite to the planar face, a lower region constituting a mass of the semiconductor material, the ions being chosen from among hydrogen gas or rare gas ions, and the wafer during implantation being maintained at a temperature below a temperature at which gas produced by the implanted ions can escape by diffusion;
• joining the planar face of said wafer to a stiffener constituted by at least one rigid material layer after implanting the wafer with ions;
• heat treating the wafer after joining the stiffener at an adequate temperature for creating a separation between the thin film and the mass along said profile, the separation bringing about a relief structure on the thin film and an inverted relief structure on the mass.