ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates an off-electrode plasma technique for fabricating microreliefs that involves depositing a molten-aluminum catalytic mask on the surface of a silicon substrate and irradiating the surface with high-voltage gas-discharge particles. It discusses how catalytic masks are generated for fabricating DOE microreliefs. The chapter also discusses a molten aluminum–silicon system irradiated by a high-voltage gas-discharge ion–electron flux with particle energy up to 6 keV. It presents the results of experimental investigations, which agree well with the model of silicon-atom entrainment by a vacancy flux. Silicon dissolution in molten aluminum under the vacancy mechanism assumes the presence of constant sources: those of vacancies at the melt surface and of semiconductor atoms at the boundary x = 0. With an increase in the irradiation time, the melt begins to attain an equilibrium state, and the vacancy effect on the stimulation of diffusion intensifies.
