【Frontiers of scientific research】

In the ultra clean laboratory on the 49th floor, Room 129, Beiyang Campus of Tianjin University, a silver box SHL-100-RIE reactive ion etching machine is processing 4-inch gallium arsenide wafers. The team led by Professor Yang Fan, the equipment manager, achieved the etching of nanoscale grooves on quantum dot chips by precisely controlling the CF4/Ar mixed gas ratio, with a depth error controlled within ± 3nm.

【Technical Highlights】

Multi material compatibility: successfully applied to the graphic processing of silicon-based materials (Si/SiO2/SiNx), III-V compounds (GaAs/InP), metals (Al/Ti/Ta), and organic photoresists, especially meeting the processing requirements of quantum devices for heterostructures

Precision temperature control: The unique water-cooled cooling system (5 ℃~room temperature ± 0.5 ℃) effectively solves the problem of material thermal deformation caused by high-power plasma, ensuring the structural integrity of two-dimensional material devices

Fully automatic process: The Recipe menu comes pre-set with 36 process formulas, including the "Low Damage Graphene Etching Program" developed in collaboration with Tsinghua University, greatly improving research efficiency

Case study: In 2023, the device supported the research group to publish a paper in Advanced Materials, successfully preparing a topological insulator nanowire array with a gate length of 100nm, and achieving a uniformity of 97% in key etching steps.