Energy band engineering for photoelectrochemical etching of GaN/InGaN heterostructures

Photoelectrochemical (PEC) etching is a rapid and inexpensive means of etching GaN, InGaN, and related materials for micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) applications. In this work, we show that bandgap engineering of GaN/InGaN heterostructures can be used to exert substantial control over PEC et...

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Veröffentlicht in:Applied physics letters 2014-06, Vol.104 (24)
Hauptverfasser: Ramesh, Prashanth, Krishnamoorthy, Sriram, Rajan, Siddharth, Washington, Gregory N.
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Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:Photoelectrochemical (PEC) etching is a rapid and inexpensive means of etching GaN, InGaN, and related materials for micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) applications. In this work, we show that bandgap engineering of GaN/InGaN heterostructures can be used to exert substantial control over PEC etching and achieve strain-free cantilevers. A single, 200-nm thick layer InGaN was selectively etched using bandgap-selective PEC etch. We show that the use of highly doped guard layers to confine photogenerated holes uniformly across the InGaN layer enables a uniform, fast, and effective PEC etch. This approach enables complete uniform etching using PEC and could enable many optical and MEMS devices.
ISSN:0003-6951
1077-3118
DOI:10.1063/1.4883890