The idea for this manual was created by the author and Birgit Hannemann (now Professor at the University of Applied Sciences, Bremen, Germany) as an internal catalogue of results of several years of investigations at the Chemnitz University of Technology, Germany. At this base supplying investigations and the elabo- tion of the manuscript were supported by the Stiftung Industrieforschung, Bonn, Germany. In the course of this the coworkers of the author Eva Gartner, Steffi Kronert and Cornelia Kowol were directly involved. All the SEM pictures result from preparations performed at the Centre of - crotechnologies at the Chemnitz University of Technology (Head: Prof. Thomas Gessner). The author and his coworkers wish to express their thanks to Wolfgang Brauer (mask design), Norbert Zichner (processes), Iris Hobelt (SEM pictures) and the student Karin Preissler (manuscript layout support). In particular thanks are due to the Stiftung Industrieforschung for the financial support and to the Springer V- lag for the edition of this manual.