Characterization of deep wet etching of fused silica glass for single cell and optical sensor deposition英文文献.pdfVIP

IOP PUBLISHING JOURNAL OF MICROMECHANICS AND MICROENGINEERING J. Micromech. Microeng. 19 (2009) 065013 (8pp) doi:10.1088/0960-1317/19/6/065013 Characterization of deep wet etching of fused silica glass for single cell and optical sensor deposition 1 Haixin Zhu , Mark Holl, Tathagata Ray, Shivani Bhushan and Deirdre R Meldrum Center for Ecogenomics, The Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA E-mail: Haixin.zhu@asu.edu Received 17 December 2008, in final form 12 March 2009 Published 20 May 2009 Online at stacks.iop.org/JMM/19/065013 Abstract The development of a high-throughput single-cell metabolic rate monitoring system relies on the use of transparent substrate material for a single cell-trapping platform. The high optical transparency, high chemical resistance, improved surface quality and compatibility with the silicon micromachining process of fused silica make it very attractive and desirable for this application. In this paper, we report the results from the development and characterization of a hydrofluoric acid (HF) based deep wet-etch process on fused silica. The pin holes and notching defects of various single-coated masking layers during the etching are characterized and the most suitable masking materials are identified for different etch depths. The dependence of the average etch rate and surface roughness on the etch depth, impurity concentration and HF composition are also examined. The resulting undercut from the deep HF etch using various masking materials is also investigated. The developed and characterized process techniques have been successfully implemented in the fabrication of micro-well arrays for single cell trapping and sensor deposition. Up to 60 μm deep micro-wells have been etched in a fused silica substrate with over 90% process yiel