We make microstructures out of 15 mill single crystal silicon substrates. Using 110 oriented silicon and masking along the right 111 plane we can etch vertically or almost completely anisotropically. A recent application required etching 60 mill silicon substrates. The degree of anisotropy we can achieve during etching is inconsistent. We can rarely get vertical sidewalls while etching. I am told that this is because of "swirl" in the silicon substrates. It is my understanding that swirl is a type of "crooked" growth defect during LEC crystal growth processing. Can anyone verify that the poor anisotropic etching is due to "swirl"? Is this a common problem when performing bulk anisotropic etching of silicon substrates that are > 45 mills thick? Does anyone know where I can get single crystal 110 silicon substrates (~ 0.060 ") with minimal swirl? Is there another way to get excellent wet chemistry anisotropic etching without having to worry about swirl? Any information I can get would be helpful. Thank you, Andrew J. Nielson Graduate Student, Mechanical Engineering Brigham Young University Mems Group email: nielsona@et.byu.edu http://www.et.byu.edu:80/~nielsona