Self assembled micro masking effect in the fabrication of SiC nanopillars by ICP-RIE dry etching

▶ This paper deals the fabrication of 4H-SiC nanopillars using ICP-RIE dry etching in Cl2/Ar gas plasma. ▶ Cylindrical nanopillars of 300 nm diameter and 500 nm height with smooth side walls were etched on SiC wafer. ▶ The novelty is the fabrication of nano pillars without patterned etch mask. ▶ The most interesting feature of this mask-less etching is the pore structure of the pillars that is each pillar has been produced as a hollow structure having a pore centrally along its length. ▶ The self assembled micro masking effect for the fabrication of this unique nanostructure has been investigated in this paper. ▶ To our knowledge, no report is available on the fabrication of SiC nanopillars without using patterned nano mask. ▶ In this report we present the experimental results on the novel fabrication of SiC nanopillars using mask-free Cl2 based ICP-RIE etching technique.