Dry or plasma etching with reduction in gas flow during reaction and use of SF4

摘要

A process for dry etching a surface within a vacuum treatment reactor includes evacuating the reactor, generating a glow discharge within said reactor, feeding a reactive etching gas into said reactor and reacting said etching gas within said reactor, removing gas with reaction products of said reacting from said reactor and installing an initial flow of said etching gas into said reactor and reducing said flow after a predetermined time span and during said reacting. The vacuum treatment reactor has a reactor with a pumping arrangement for evacuating the reactor. A glow discharge generating arrangement is connected to an electric power supply. A gas tank arrangement is connected to the reactor and has a reactive etching gas such as SF4.