I think you should be more concerned about what method you will be
using to deposit the gold.  1 micron is a lot for evaporation and
unless you have a heated sample holder you will probably find that
your gold deposition will crack from its own internal stresses.

Sputtering metals, I am told, creates less stress and you may be able
to get to 1 micron.  Since sputtering is conformal in nature you will
not be able to do liftoff and so etching is really your only
choice.  Be careful though because since you are etching 1 micron
down, you will also be etching 1 micron to the sides, meaning if you
start out with 10 micron features, you will end with 8 micron
features (1 micron taken away from each side).  If the 10 microns is
important you will want to account for this in your mask
design.  There are methods to use an anisotropic plasma etch to etch
gold, however they require specialized chemistries and equipment.

Nicolas Duarte
PhD Candidate under Dr Srinivas Tadigadapa
Electrical Engineering Department
The Pennsylvania State University

At 04:46 PM 3/3/2007, you wrote:
>Please give some advice:
>I want to fabricate the patterned gold on quartz substrate.
>But the thickness of the gold is more than 1micro,
>the minimum dimension of the pattern is 10 micro.
>What process Should I use?? etch gold or lift-off,
>Is there some problems about the two kinds of process??