Surface chemistry as data for level-set simulation of etching and deposition
Abstract
Level-set simulators of etching and deposition move the surface with a velocity that depends on adsorbate coverages. These coverages are usually computed from balances solved and coded by hand for each chemistry, whereas voxel-based Monte Carlo profile simulators read the reaction mechanism as data. For the open-source level-set simulator ViennaPS, this work presents a surface model whose rate laws, Jacobian and velocity are derived from a reaction file and evaluated with ray-traced fluxes. Steady-state coverages are obtained with Newton's method and transient coverages with a conservative integrator. One compiled model is applied to eight chemistries for chemical vapour deposition, selective epitaxy, plasma etching, sputtering and atomic layer deposition. It reproduces a hand-written silicon etch model to seven significant digits at a single point and within the Monte Carlo noise in a masked trench. In a high-aspect-ratio cavity, alumina conformality is determined by a trimethylaluminium reaction probability within the measured range.
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BibTeX
@misc{filipovic2026surface,
title = {{Surface chemistry as data for level-set simulation of etching and deposition}},
author = {Lado Filipovic and Tobias Reiter and Philipp Haslhofer},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2611.03707},
eprint = {2611.03707},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.03707},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Surface chemistry as data for level-set simulation of etching and deposition
AU - Lado Filipovic
AU - Tobias Reiter
AU - Philipp Haslhofer
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/11/01
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2611.03707
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.03707
AB - Level-set simulators of etching and deposition move the surface with a velocity that depends on adsorbate coverages. These coverages are usually computed from balances solved and coded by hand for each chemistry, whereas voxel-based Monte Carlo profile simulators read the reaction mechanism as data. For the open-source level-set simulator ViennaPS, this work presents a surface model whose rate laws, Jacobian and velocity are derived from a reaction file and evaluated with ray-traced fluxes. Steady-state coverages are obtained with Newton's method and transient coverages with a conservative integrator. One compiled model is applied to eight chemistries for chemical vapour deposition, selective epitaxy, plasma etching, sputtering and atomic layer deposition. It reproduces a hand-written silicon etch model to seven significant digits at a single point and within the Monte Carlo noise in a masked trench. In a high-aspect-ratio cavity, alumina conformality is determined by a trimethylaluminium reaction probability within the measured range.
ER -