Without touching the resist??? That is interesting :-) Than why would you need to use the photoresist? just use a pair of tweezers and touch only Titanium :-) and you don't need even RIE chamber for that :-)

To clarify, I am using the photoresist to transfer micrometer sized features to the titanium surface. Not sure if the tweezers would do a good job in this case...

I understand what you need to do but will tell you that is impossible to etch 400nm of Titanium without as you say touching the photoresist. The maximum that you could get is a process that would give you the selectivity that would allow to etch 400nm of Ti.

Can you please clarify the statement: "The maximum that you could get is a process that would give you the selectivity that would allow to etch 400nm of Ti?"

I have found one reference:

http://134.147.148.178/ispcdocs/ispc7/content/7/07-0966.pdf

but I have no personal experience with RIE of titanium

Here is another reference:

http://pac.iupac.org/publications/pac/pdf/1992/pdf/6405x0703.pdf

It appears that the greatest difficulty with Ti is that it forms an oxide layer which is difficult to remove without a fluorinated etchant. Ti itself, once the oxide is removed, will be etched readily by chlorinated etchants.

Thank you very much for your help!

You have to consider the fact that even if chemistry is kept to minimum you still will have mechanical etching (due to sputtering caused by energetic ions in RIE). So you just need to find a good recipe with selectivity or increase the thickness of the overlaying photoresist mask. You cannot have the photoresist intact.

I am using a much thicker layer of the resist than the layer of my titanium. I am trying to find the appropriate recipe, which I have not been able to do...

Sorry for my statement but I will tell you that you will not find a recipe that would suit you. Why? because the process parameters are very dependent on a lot of factors and first of all the type and configuration of your system. I will tell you that even the same type of systems would perform differently and would give you different results if they were not tuned using the same reference set points. Please correct me if I wrong but I understand that you are new to dry etching otherwise you would not request the recipe that would not touch your photoresist. Your photoresist will be etching you like it or not. There is only matter how fast it will be etched in relation to your material. That called as selectivity. Usually people go another way: first, they would determine the process that would give them the maximum selectivity and then based on the thickness of your materials that you need to etch you make your mask. Thanks, Andrew

Hi, did you find some appropriate method to obtain RIE of titanium? I have no experience on dry etching.