News Release 12-183 - Video
This video combines multiple frames captured in situ during wet etching.
This material is available primarily for archival purposes. Telephone numbers or other contact information may be out of date; please see current contact information at media contacts.
This video combines multiple frames captured in situ during wet etching using epi-illumination diffraction phase microscopy (epi-DPM) with a laser source. To capture the images, the researchers used a 5x objective and provided a 320 micron by 240 micron field of view. The total etch depth--the height difference between the orange and purple regions--was approximately 250 nanometers after the 45 second etch. The diagonal line in the lower left corner may be a scratch in the sample. The images are false color and 3-D and represent the height profile of the University of Illinois logo etched onto the surface of a gallium-arsenide semiconductor substrate.
Credit: Chris Edwards, Amir Arbabi, Gabriel Popescu, and Lynford Goddard, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign