Beveling of Silicon Carbide Wafer by Plasma Etching Using Atmospheric-Pressure Plasma

Although beveling is essential for preventing the chipping of particles from the edge of a wafer during surface polishing, there is no high-efficiency beveling method for a silicon carbide wafer because of its hardness and chemical inertness Thus, in this study, plasma etching using atmospheric-pressure plasma is applied for the beveling of a silicon carbide wafer As a result, an initially square corner was well rounded within 20-30 min The beveling rate was highest at the start of processing and decreased with increasing radius of curvature It was proven that the beveling phenomenon was due to the electric-field concentration at the edge of the wafer as determined by calculating electric-field intensity (C) 2010 The Japan Society of Applied Physics