Using a quartz crystal microbalance for low energy ion beam etching studies

A quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) has been used for etching yield measurements in a low energy ion beam system. The goal is to obtain etching yields for ion energies below 150 eV for various ion chemistries and target materials. Typical beam currents are about 0.5 μA, and the mass change per unit time on the QCM is much smaller than that for typical QCM applications. A number of problems with the application of a QCM were encountered and a description of how they were overcome is presented in this article. Quantitative etch yield results for the etching of two different photoresists and SiO2 down to 25 eV ion energy are presented.