Ms. Hakemi:

Gold does not etch in oxygen plasma even at very low pressures. There are no
volitile byproducts to allow plasma etching to occur. The best you can
expect is to sputter the gold around to some degree. A more productive way
is to ion mill the gold using very low pressures and argon as sputtering gas
to remove gold. The problem here is that ion milling removes all materials
at about the same rate so if you hope to use photoresist as a masking
material you will be disappointed. Another way is to wet etch the gold.
There are many commercial formulations available that will allow you to etch
the gold using photoresist. The only problem is that the gold will etch
isotropically so if you have large patterns >5 micron and you are etching <1
micron of gold this might be a way to remove the gold selectively.

Bob Henderson

----- Original Message -----
From: "Hakemi, Ghazal" 
To: 
Sent: Monday, October 13, 2008 1:40 AM
Subject: [mems-talk] RIE gold etch rate


> Dear All,
>
> Does anybody know roughly what the etch rate of Au in oxygen RIE should be?
> What parameters can I change to minimize Au etch rate: pressure, flow, power?
>
> Best regards.
>
> Miss Ghazal Hakemi
> PhD Student