AVS 46th International Symposium
    Electronic Materials and Processing Division Monday Sessions
       Session EM-MoA

Paper EM-MoA7
Photo-Assisted RIE of III-V Nitrides in BCl@sub 3@/Cl@sub 2@/Ar/N@sub 2@

Monday, October 25, 1999, 4:00 pm, Room 608

Session: Nitride Processing and Characterization
Presenter: N. Medelci, University of Houston
Authors: N. Medelci, University of Houston
I.E. Berishev, University of Houston
D. Starikov, University of Houston
A. Bensaoula, University of Houston
M. Gonin, Ionwerks
K. Fuhrer, Ionwerks
A. Schultz, Ionwerks
Correspondent: Click to Email
III-V nitrides are known as superior semiconductor materials for UV optoelectronic and high power, high temperature applications. However, these materials are extremely difficult to etch due to their high molecular bond strength. In order to address the device processing issue, reactive ion etching (RIE) and photo-assisted RIE processes were developed for boron nitride (BN) and gallium nitride (GaN) thin films. Our experiments show that optimum photo-assisted etching using a filtered Xe lamp occurs in Cl@sub 2@/Ar and BCl@sub 3@/Cl@sub 2@/N@sub 2@ chemistries for BN and GaN, respectively.@footnote 1-2@ Etch rates up to 324 (GaN) and 220 (BN) nm/min with smoother and cleaner etched surfaces were obtained with this process. In this work, we extend our studies to the AlGaN and InGaN ternaries. We also address some peculiarities observed in the previous work such as higher GaN etch rates for the UV-filtered Xe lamp, and lower GaN etch rates when a KrF excimer laser was used instead of the Xe lamp. To that end and to better understand these processes and characterize the photo-assisted effects, mass spectrometry determination of volatile species and optical emission spectroscopy (OES) identification of species in the plasma will be performed. The mass spectrometer used is a unique miniature time of flight prototype which employs orthogonal extraction, has a resolving power m/@Delta@m in excess of 500 and a detection limit of 10 ppm for all masses at a one second sampling rate. @FootnoteText@ @footnote 1@ A. Tempez, N. Medelci, N. Badi, D. Starikov, I. Berishev, and A. Bensaoula, "Photoenhanced reactive ion etching of III-V nitrides in BCl@sub 3@/Cl@sub 2@/Ar/N@sub 2@ plasmas", accepted for publication in J. Vac. Sci. and Technol. A (1999). @footnote 2@ N. Medelci, A. Tempez, I. Berichev, D. Starikov and A. Bensaoula, "Photo-assisted RIE of GaN in BCl@sub 3@/Cl@sub 2@/N@sub 2@", Mat. Res. Soc. Symp. Proc. (1999) (submitted).