Toward efficient fabrication of microstructures on SiC with nanometric surface quality.

Microstructures with high surface integrity are difficult to efficiently fabricate on silicon carbide. A method for modifying the band gap via ion implantation is proposed, which induces a crystalline-to-amorphous transition so that the laser intensity for material removal is substantially reduced. The structure can be generated by a single pulse, considerably increasing the efficiency. Furthermore, chemical etching is introduced to make the process material selective and self-limited. This new approach achieves not only subnanometric roughness but also less subsurface damage and a remarkable improvement in controllability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]