Chromium

Chromium (Cr) metal is commonly used to make photomasks for lithography it is also used as a hardmask for etching materials such as Silicon Dioxide.  It can be etched using Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP), Reactive Ion Etching (RIE) or Ion Beam Etch (IBE).

Dry Etching Chromium for Nanofabrication

We achieve control of critical dimensions down to sub 100nm features using our portfolio of etching techniques. Processing with high precision and excellent uniformity enables our customers to design innovative optical elements.

Read more about Chromium dry processing in our AR White Paper.

Common Applications

• Hard mask for Diffractive Optical Elements (DOE)
• Master moulds are commonly manufactured using photolithography. Masters can be made of quartz, glass or silicon and dry etched using a chromium mask.
• Photomask manufacturing
• In photolithography, Chromium is used as a reflective material to produce the reticle, also referred to as photomask.