Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 39 (2000) pp. L457-L459 |Next Article| |Table of Contents|
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Letter
Optimum Atomic Spacing for AlAs Etching in GaAs Epitaxial Lift-Off Technology
Kota S. R. Koteswara Rao,
Takeshi Katayama,
Shin Yokoyama and
Masataka Hirose
Research Center for Nanodevices and Systems, Hiroshima University, 1-4-2 Kagamiyama, Higashi-Hiroshima 739-8527, Japan
(Received March 3, 2000; accepted for publication March 17, 2000)
With respect to GaAs epitaxial lift-off technology, we report here the optimum atomic spacing (5–10 nm) needed to etch off the AlAs release layer that is sandwiched between two GaAs epitaxial layers. The AlAs etching rate in hydrofluoric acid based solutions was monitored as a function of release layer thickness. We found a sudden quenching in the etching rate, approximately 20 times that of the peak value, at lower dimensions (∼2.5 nm) of the AlAs epitaxial layer. Since this cannot be explained on the basis of a previous theory (inverse square root of release layer thickness), we propose a diffusion-limited mechanism to explain this reaction process. With the diffusion constant being a mean-free-path-dependent parameter, a relation between the mean free path and the width of the channel is considered. This relation is in reasonable agreement with the experimental results and gives a good physical insight to the reaction kinetics.
URL:
http://jjap.jsap.jp/link?JJAP/39/L457/
DOI: 10.1143/JJAP.39.L457
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