High aspect ratio GaAs nanowires made by ICP-RIE etching using Cl2/N2 chemistry

Dry Etching of Al-Rich AlGaAs for Photonic Crystal Fabrication

“…A contributory etching species is Cl 2 , which has been well developed for GaAs RIE. [6][7][8][9] Hence, this is most commonly utilized for the PC fabrication of the AlGaAs/GaAs system. 10) However, our structure requires the deep etching of Al-rich AlGaAs.…”

Inductively coupled plasma etching of high aspect ratio two-dimensional photonic crystals in Al-rich AlGaAs and AlGaAsSb

“…15,17,23 All these works pointed out that pure Cl 2 plasma caused severe undercuts and that an additive gas such as N 2 or O 2 should be introduced to achieve anisotropic etching of high aspect ratio features. 10 This process allows the etching of vertical GaAs nanowires with aspect ratio larger than 10 and gratings with aspect ratio of ϳ8. 12 The starting point of this study was an existing ICP-RIE etching process based on a Cl 2 / N 2 mixture optimized to achieved nearly vertical profiles of nanometer scale details.…”

“…In such high index-contrast low-loss optical cavities, the light confinement in the layer plane is controlled by the periodic arrangements of air holes whereas the guiding in the vertical direction is provided by the total internal reflection in a slab waveguide. High quality ICP etching of GaAs low-loss waveguide, 9 Bragg mirrors or nanowires, 10 and PhC membrane microcavities 11,12 have already been demonstrated. The membrane approach has widely been used to demonstrate many component concepts.…”

Effect of Plasma Processes on the Characteristics of GaAs Related Optical Device Structure

“…While, compound semiconductors represented by GaAs are employed for the fabrication of optical devices, which is still difficult for Si technology. The state of the art nanofabrication for the compound semiconductors shows the prospect of upcoming next generation devices, such as photonic crystal and nanowires devices [2,3,4,5]. For the realization of those devices, the etching technique is required to have its accuracy of several nm, as well as adequate selectivity of the target materials with strong anisotropic nature [3,4,5].…”

“…The state of the art nanofabrication for the compound semiconductors shows the prospect of upcoming next generation devices, such as photonic crystal and nanowires devices [2,3,4,5]. For the realization of those devices, the etching technique is required to have its accuracy of several nm, as well as adequate selectivity of the target materials with strong anisotropic nature [3,4,5]. Further, the process damage induced by the etching or ashing becomes more effective on the device characteristics [1,6,7].…”