UV-Photoassisted Etching of GaN in KOH [electronic resource].

Published:: Washington, D.C. : United States. Dept. of Energy, 1998.
Oak Ridge, Tenn. : Distributed by the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, U.S. Dept. of Energy.
Additional Creators:: Sandia National Laboratories, United States. Department of Energy, and United States. Department of Energy. Office of Scientific and Technical Information

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Summary:

The etch rate of GaN under W-assisted photoelectrochemical conditions in KOH solutions is found to be a strong function of illumination intensity, solution molarity, sample bias and material doping level. At low e-h pair generation rates, grain boundaries are selectively etched, while at higher illumination intensities etch rates for unintentionally doped (n - 3x 10^12Gcm-3) GaN are 2 1000 .min-l. The etching is diffusion limited under our conditions with an activation energy of - 0.8kCal.mol-1. The etched surfaces are rough, but retain their stoichiometry. PEC etching is found to selectively reveal grain boundaries in GaN under low light illumination conditions. At high lamp powers the rates increase with sample temperature and the application of bias to the PEC cell, while they go through a maximum with KOH solution molarity. The etching is diffusion-limited, producing rough surface morphologies that are suitable in a limited number of device fabrication steps. The surfaces however appear to remain relatively close to their stoichiometric composition.

Report Numbers:

E 1.99:sand98-2555j
sand98-2555j

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Published through SciTech Connect.
11/12/1998.
"sand98-2555j"
"DE00001952"
Journal of Electronic Materials FT
Abernathy, C.R.; Donovan, S.M.; Han, J.; Shul, R.J.; Pearton, S.J.; Cho, H.; Lambers, E.S.; Auh, K.H.; Ren F.

Funding Information:

AC04-94AL85000

View MARC record | catkey: 14108139