Beveling of Silicon Carbide Wafer by Plasma Etching Using Atmospheric-Pressure Plasma

Although beveling is essential for preventing the chipping of particles from the edge of a wafer during surface polishing, there is no high-efficiency beveling method for a silicon carbide wafer because of its hardness and chemical inertness. Thus, in this study, plasma etching using atmospheric-pressure plasma is applied for the beveling of a silicon carbide wafer. As a result, an initially square corner was well rounded within 20–30 min. The beveling rate was highest at the start of processing and decreased with increasing radius of curvature. It was proven that the beveling phenomenon was due to the electric-field concentration at the edge of the wafer as determined by calculating electric-field intensity.