According to an aspect of the present disclosure, the backside recesses (143, 243) can be formed by removing the sacrificial material layers (142, 242) selective to the insulating layers (132, 232), the sets of one or more bridge structures 73B, and the arrays of memory opening fill structures 58 while the sets of the one or more bridge structures 73B provide structural support at the level of the contact-level dielectric layer 280 and deformation of the first exemplary structure at the level of the contact-level dielectric layer 280 is suppressed or prevented.
Referring to FIGS. 23A and 23B, a backside blocking dielectric layer (not shown) may be optionally deposited in the backside recesses (143, 243) and the backside trenches 79 and over the contact-level dielectric layer 280. The backside blocking dielectric layer includes a dielectric material such as a dielectric metal oxide, silicon oxide, or a combination thereof. For example, the backside blocking dielectric layer may include aluminum oxide. The backside blocking dielectric layer may be formed by a conformal deposition process such as atomic layer deposition or chemical vapor deposition. The thickness of the backside blocking dielectric layer may be in a range from 1 nm to 20 nm, such as from 2 nm to 10 nm, although lesser and greater thicknesses may also be used.