All,

I have a silicon wafer and I have deposited gold to the silicon by
sputtering (this gold substrate is less than 1 micron thick).  My gold
substrate is electroplated with copper after photoresist has been
patterned onto the gold.  Once the copper is on the gold, I remove the
photoresist which leaves behind holes in the copper that allow access to
the gold.  At this point I would like to remove the gold from the wafer
and have my copper film remain.  I have successfully done this, but only
with >5 micron sized holes in the copper.

As soon as I get our RIE up and running again, I will attempt O2 plasma
descum step prior to etching, but I want to know if the problem could be
something other than an organic contaminant layer.


Regards,

Dave Lewis
Lake Shore Cryotronics
Ohio
Dave.Lewis@Lakeshore.com