A study of reactive ion etching damage effects in GaN

• Published in: Microelectronic engineering Vol. 57; pp. 585 - 591
• Main Authors: Rong, B, Reeves, R.J, Brown, S.A, Alkaisi, M.M, van der Drift, E, Cheung, R, Sloof, W.G
• Format: Journal Article Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 01-09-2001; Elsevier Science
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Dry-etch; Electronics; Exact sciences and technology; GaN; Microelectronic fabrication (materials and surfaces technology); Reactive ion etching; Semiconductor electronics. Microelectronics. Optoelectronics. Solid state devices; Dry-etch; GaN; Reactive ion etching; Microelectronic fabrication; Gallium nitride; Photoluminescence; Damaging
• ISSN: 0167-9317; 1873-5568
• DOI: 10.1016/S0167-9317(01)00489-0

This paper presents a study of dry-etch-induced damage effects on GaN films grown on SiC substrates. Photoluminescence (PL) of the control sample and samples exposed to Ar, SF
6, SF
6+N
2 and N
2 plasmas have been studied. In general, etching is found to decrease the donor-bound exciton (D°X) intensity. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) has been employed to analyse the surface atomic concentration of all samples. Incorporation of nitrogen has been found on GaN surfaces exposed to N-containing plasmas. Langmuir probe has been used to quantify the amount of ion bombardment during plasma etching by measuring the ion flux. The effect of etching in an N
2 plasma and annealing in an N
2 ambient on the optical properties of the GaN surface has been compared and found to be significantly different.