Temperature Dependent Pore Formation in Metal Assisted Chemical Etching of Silicon

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In this article the etch morphology generated by a metal assisted chemical etch process, using silver particles is studied. Temperature, as well as doping concentrations, are varied over a wide range. Especially the results at low temperatures (<0°C) allow insight into the processes itself. Highly doped samples (N d > 10 17 cm −3 ) show an interesting tendency, by favoring micro pore formation over the usually observed template like etching of the metal coated regions. By considering the properties of the Schottky barrier between metal particle and silicon substrate the observed phenomena are discussed.