Standard etching techniques (Secco, Schimmel, Wright etc.) were first considered, as used for defect delineation in Si, SiGe, Ge and in new engineered substrates made from these starting materials, such as silicon-on-insulator (SOI), strained and extra-strained silicon-on-insulator (sSOI and XsSOI) and Ge-on-insulator (GeOI). Attention was then focussed on new chromium-free etching techniques which had been developed: chemical solutions containing other oxidizing agents (such as organic peracids, additional compounds such as bromine, iodine etc.) and gaseous HCl etching. The performances of standard etching solutions were compared with those of chromium-free etching techniques and the specifics of the various techniques were listed. Finally, an attempt was made to link defect etching results to those arising from physical characterization techniques (such as Raman spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction and pseudo-MOSFET mobility measurements). Extensive work was still required to establish a proper correlation between selective etching and the latter techniques.

Defect Delineation and Characterization in SiGe, Ge and other Semiconductor-on-Insulator Structures. A.Abbadie, F.Allibert, F.Brunier: Solid-State Electronics, 2009, 53[8], 850-7