Characteristics and mechanisms of aerosol deposition-based barium titanate by sulfur hexafluoride inductively coupled plasma etching

Aerosol deposition (AD)-derived barium titanate (BTO) micropatterns are etched in SF₆/O₂/Ar plasmas using inductively coupled plasma (ICP) etching technology. The reaction mechanisms of the proposed sulfur hexafluoride on BTO thin films are verified through X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and static time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) results. The exact peak positions and chemical shifts of Ba 3d, Ti 2p, O 1s, and F 1s are deduced by fitted XPS narrow-scan spectra on both the as-deposited and etched BTO surfaces. Compared to the as-deposited BTOs, the etched Ba 3d_5/2, Ba 3d_3/2, Ti 2p_3/2, Ti 2p_1/2, and O 1s peaks shift towards higher binding energy regions by amounts of 0.55, 0.45, 0.4, 0.35, and 0.76 eV, respectively. ToF-SIMS analysis is used to obtain elemental and molecular data for quantitatively studying the interaction between reactive gases and BTO. The combined use of these two techniques is to systematically investigate and analyze the sulfur hexafluoride-based BTO etching mechanisms.