Design of reactive ion etching process based on ab-initio calculation: The first step

We propose an intricate method of Reactive Ion Etching (RIE) process design for transition-metal (TM) materials using ab-initio calculations. The TM materials are inert in dry etching processes since volatile etching by-products cannot be formed easily. However, to achieve new high-performance memories based on the TM materials, a selective dry etching technique such as RIE is eagerly required instead of the conventional ion milling method. In this work, we would like to introduce our scenario of the RIE design for TM materials using the results of CoFe as an example.