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Background: I'm a statistician working with a design of experiments example regarding plasma etching of circuits, and unfortunately, the author does not define what is meant by the units used for the etch rate ($\mathring{A}$/min). A google search has proved fruitless due to the specialized symbol and the fact that other texts also assume you already know what the $\mathring{A}$ symbol means (which is probably true for those who work in this field, but not for the rest of us).

Question: What does the $\mathring{A}$ unit mean in a plasma etching experiment, for "Etch rate ($\mathring{A}$/min)."

hazzey
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Meg
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1 Answers1

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Anisotropic etching is a linear process, like welding, so presumably the units would be distance per time. Unlike welding it is at a small scale. See this slideshare. In this case units are Angstroms per minute. One Angstrom is $10^{-10}\ \textrm{m}$, indicating the process is on an atomic scale. Since it appears to be used for integrated circuit fabrication, those units are sensible depending on the scale.

do-the-thing-please
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