Deep multilevel wet etching of fused silica glass microstructures in BOE solution.

Fused silica glass is a material of choice for micromechanical, microfluidic, and optical devices due to its chemical resistance, optical, electrical, and mechanical performance. Wet etching is the key method for fabricating of such microdevices. Protective mask integrity is a big challenge due extremely aggressive properties of etching solution. Here, we propose multilevel microstructures fabrication route based on fused silica deep etching through a stepped mask. First, we provide an analysis of a fused silica dissolution mechanism in buffered oxide etching (BOE) solution and calculate the main fluoride fractions like [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text] as a function of pH and NH4F:HF ratio. Then, we experimentally investigate the influence of BOE composition (1:1-14:1) on the mask resistance, etch rate and profile isotropy during deep etching through a metal/photoresist mask. Finally, we demonstrate a high-quality multilevel over-200 µm etching process with the rate up to 3 µm/min, which could be of a great interest for advanced microdevices with flexure suspensions, inertial masses, microchannels, and through-wafer holes.

High-Q trenched aluminum coplanar resonators with an ultrasonic edge microcutting for superconducting quantum devices.

Dielectric losses are one of the key factors limiting the coherence of superconducting qubits. The impact of materials and fabrication steps on dielectric losses can be evaluated using coplanar waveguide (CPW) microwave resonators. Here, we report on superconducting CPW microwave resonators with internal quality factors systematically exceeding 5 × 106 at high powers and 2 × 106 (with the best value of 4.4 × 106) at low power. Such performance is demonstrated for 100-nm-thick aluminum resonators with 7-10.5 um center trace on high-resistivity silicon substrates commonly used in Josephson-junction based quantum circuit. We investigate internal quality factors of the resonators with both dry and wet aluminum etching, as well as deep and isotropic reactive ion etching of silicon substrate. Josephson junction compatible CPW resonators fabrication process with both airbridges and silicon substrate etching is proposed. Finally, we demonstrate the effect of airbridges' positions and extra process steps on the overall dielectric losses. The best quality factors are obtained for the wet etched aluminum resonators and isotropically removed substrate with the proposed ultrasonic metal edge microcutting.