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Nano-depth grooves formed through O2 plasma etching in the presence of PTFE

Nobuo Misawa1,2 and Shoji Takeuchi1,2

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In this paper, we describe a simple method for fabricating nano-depth grooves in glass. In our method, the depth of the grooves can be easily controlled at the several tens of nanometers scale for the vertical features by simply applying O2 plasma in the presence of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE). Using atomic force microscopy, we found that (1) the etching rate varies in different types of glasses; (2) the etched glass surface is flat (root-mean-square roughness ≈1 nm); (3) the etched depth of the glass almost linearly depends on the output power of the plasma equipment; and (4) the etching is influenced by the surface area of PTFE that is exposed to O2 plasma in the etching chamber. Furthermore, using these nano-depth groove structures, we made nano-depth (≈60 nm) fluidic channels as a demonstration of micro/nanofabrication. The channels are composed of a silicon substrate and etched glass anodically bonded together. This simple method is a useful technique for the production of nano-depth fluidic channels.


PACS

47.85.Np Fluidics

81.65.Cf Surface cleaning, etching, patterning

81.16.-c Methods of nanofabrication and processing

47.61.Fg Flows in micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) and nano-electromechanical systems (NEMS)

52.77.Bn Etching and cleaning

Subjects

Fluid dynamics

Surfaces, interfaces and thin films

Plasma physics

Nanoscale science and low-D systems

Dates

Issue 11 (November 2009)

Received 15 March 2009, in final form 10 September 2009

Published 20 October 2009



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