Best poster award for contribution to sustainable semiconductor technology

31.Mar.2026   Reseach News

We are excited to share the news that our master student Namitha Regunath received the Best Poster Award at the Materials for Advanced Metallization (MAM) Conference in Chemnitz for her contribution "Simulation of Metal-assisted Halogen-Free Etching of Silicon".

In her study, she analyzed and compared different metals to be used as catalysts enhancing the etching of silicon by hydrogen. Such approaches are studied in the HaloFreeEtch project which aims at replacing halogenated compounds widely used for semiconductor etching by sustainable and less toxic alternatives. Using hydrogen as an etchant gas is one of the most promising approaches. Identifying suitable catalyst materials enabling higher etch rates is therefor a key step towards application.

Find more  information on halogen-free etching on our web page halofreeetch.eu. 

We acknowledge the support of this work by Prof. Sibylle Gemming from the Chair Theoretical Physics of Quantum Mechanical Processes and Systems at Chemnitz University of Technology who is co-supervising this work.