Wafer-scale room-temperature bonding between silicon and ceramic wafers by means of argon-beam surface activation

A room-temperature wafer bonding method between dissimilar materials is developed. 4-inch Si wafers and 3 or 4-inch ceramic wafers are bonded in vacuum after surface sputter etching by Ar beam. Strong bonding equivalent to bulk material is achieved by room-temperature process. The method enables the bonding between dissimilar materials regardless the thermal expansion mismatch and crystal lattice mismatch. In addition, it also realizes very low damage bonding because it does not require any heating process and external load to force two specimens together.