Journal
VACUUM
Volume 116, Issue -, Pages 158-162Publisher
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.vacuum.2015.03.030
Keywords
Epitaxial AlN; MBE; ICP dry etching; Cl-2/BCl3/Ar; Smooth etched surface
Funding
- National Basic Research Program of China [2012CB315605, 2014CB340002]
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [61176015, 61176059, 61210014, 61321004, 61307024]
- Open Fund of State Key Laboratory on Integrated Optoelectronics [IOSKL2014KF09]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Inductively coupled plasma dry etching of epitaxially grown aluminum nitride (AlN) film using Cl-2/BCl3/Ar mixture has been investigated. The etch rate of AlN increases significantly with the addition of BCl3, and an etch rate as high as 258 nm/min has been demonstrated. High selectivity of AlN over Ni mask has been realized, and the etch rate of Ni is almost zero for lower bias voltage. By optimizing the etching parameters, grain formation due to crystallographic orientation dependent etching has been suppressed, and smooth etched surfaces and nearly vertical sidewalls are obtained. The root-mean-square roughness of the etched surface is measured to be 0.77 nm, which is almost the same as that of the as-grown surface. These results are suitable for the fabrication of low-loss AlN waveguides and optoelectronic devices. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available