Study of corner compensating structures and fabrication of various shapes of MEMS structures in pure and surfactant added TMAH

In this research, we have studied the various shapes of corner compensation structures such as triangles, squares as well as 〈1 1 0〉 and <1 0 0> oriented beams for use with pure and surfactant added tetramethyl ammonium hydroxide (TMAH) solutions. The etchant concentrations of 10%, 20% and 25% were used with and without a small amount of surfactant NC-200 (0.1% of the total volume of the etchant). This surfactant contains 100% polyoxyethylene-alkyl-phenyl-ether with a hydrophobic head ‘CH3(CH2)8–C6H4’ and a hydrophilic tail ‘O(CH2CH2O)20H’. As the etching characteristics (such as etch rate, convex corner undercutting and etching anisotropy) of pure TMAH change dramatically when a small amount of surfactant is added, all the designs proposed for pure TMAH (or KOH) cannot be adopted for surfactant added TMAH. Among all the compensating designs, the triangular shaped geometry is found to be the optimal choice for the surfactant added 25% TMAH solution. The optimized design is successfully used for demonstrating the fabrication of grooves for chip isolation and mesa structures surrounded by bent V-grooves where limited space is available for the compensating pattern. Furthermore, the NC-200 added 25% TMAH was also used to fabricate microfluidic channels, microstructures with rounded concave and sharp convex corners, and a 45° mirror with smooth sidewalls.