Study on Reactive Species in Catalyst-Referred Etching of 4H–SiC using Platinum and Hydrofluoric Acid

In this study, we developed aA novel abrasive-free polishing method called the catalyst-referred etching (CARE) has been developed. CARE can chemically remove SiC chemically with using an etching agent activated by a catalyst. Platinum and hydrofluoric (HF) acid are used for the planarization of SiC substrates as a catalyst and etchant, respectively. CARE can produce an atomically flat surface of 4H–SiC (0001) with a root-mean-square roughness of less than <0.1 nm, regardless of the cut-off angle. However, the mechanism of CARE has hasis not yet been clarified to date. In this study, to clarify the mechanism, KF and NH4F are added to the etchant to clarify the mechanism. The An investigation of removal rate revealeds that the removal rate is proportional to [HF]×([F^- ]+[〖HF_2〗^- ]), and it is shown that both the HF molecule and fluorine ions (F− and HF2−) arethe reactive species of the CARE process are both HF molecule and fluorine ions (F- and HF2-).