C-axis oriented ZnO film by RF sputtering and its integration with MEMS processing

In the present work, we report a new fabrication process to integrate the "c-axis oriented" ZnO films with bulk-micromachined silicon diaphragms. ZnO films are very sensitive to the chemicals used in the micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) fabrication process which include acids, bases and etchants of different material layers (e.g. SiO2, chromium, gold etc.). A Si3N4 layer is incorporated to protect the ZnO film from the etchants of chromium and gold used for patterning the electrodes. A mechanical jig is used for protecting the front side (ZnO film side) of the wafer from ethylenediamine pyrocatechol water (EPW) during the anisotropic etching of silicon. The resistivity measurement performed on the ZnO film integrated with micro-diaphragm shows the reliability of the fabrication process proposed in this work.