Reactive ion etching induced damage evaluation for optoelectronic device fabrication

Reactive ion etching (RIE) processes have been evaluated in terms of material damage introduced and effect on device performance. We have evaluated the damage introduced in the In P ∕ In Ga As P material system, in terms of surface damage depth, by various RIE-related etching processes (based on C H 4 ∕ H 2 chemistry) and we have fabricated complete Fabry-Perot laser diode devices to evaluate the effect of RIE-induced damage on device performance. Electrical, optical, and reliability performance results are presented for the laser diode devices. A comparison between the laser device performance and the related surface damage depth is presented and discussed. It has been shown that a correlation exists between RIE-induced damage and optoelectronic device performance. By carefully designing RIE-related processes, which introduce low material damage, good optoelectronic device performance can be realized coupled with high device reliability.