Engineering Research Equipment: Reactive Ion Etcher and Annealer

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9622134 Berger The Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Delaware propose the purchase Reactive Ion Etching and Rapid Thermal Annealing equipment which will be dedicated to support research in engineering. The equipment will be used for several research project including in particular: 1. Optoelectronic device fabrication. 2. Si-Ge-C semiconductor alloy structures, 3. VLSI circuit metallization, 4. Terahertz electronic circuits, 5. Micromachined near-field scanning tips. These research projects are important because they are considered by colleagues to be on the verge of technical breakthroughs which will promote basic knowledge and build the national engineering infrastructure. The Reactive Ion Etcher (RIE) is a "dry processing" instrument for the fabrication of smaller devices with higher resolution than with the "wet chemistry" (acids and solvents) that we presently use. The Rapid Thermal Annealer (RTA) is a fast, controlled heater to alloy ohmic contacts and anneal crystal damage (from prior process steps) quickly so that dopants and regions of different composition will not have time to interdiffuse. Presently we use a furnace tube with a slow response time which was modified from liquid phase epitaxy equipment. This equipment is becoming an industry standard. For example, recently IBM Corp. approached our Department with job openings for students familiar with RIE instruments. Unfortunately, our students stand at a disadvantage because we lack an RIE on-campus. These new instruments will give us the capability to attract funding for research on advanced devices and circuits, and allow use to train students on timely processing techniques. ***