Plasma processing used in the fabrication of integrated circuits that generates volatile products from the elements of the material etched and the reactive species generated by the plasma.
Note: A variation of this method that removes a single layer of atoms is known as atomic layer etching (ALE).
Source:
PAC, 2020, 92, 1861. 'Terminology of polymers in advanced lithography (IUPAC Recommendations 2020)' on page 1884 (https://doi.org/10.1515/pac-2018-1215)