Dry Etching of GaAs and AlgaAs Semiconductor Materials in High Density BCl$_3$, BCl$_3$/Ar Inductively Coupled Plasmas

BCl$_3$, BCl$_3$/Ar 고밀도 유도결합 플라즈마를 이용한 GaAs 와 AlGaAs 반도체 소자의 건식식각

We investigated dry etching of GaAs and AlGaAs in a high density planar inductively coupled plasma system with $BCl_3$ and $BCl_3/Ar$ gas chemistry. A detailed process study as a function of ICP source power, RIE chuck power and $BCl_3/Ar$ mixing ratio was performed. At this time, chamber pressure was fixed at 7.5 mTorr. The ICP source power and RIE chuck power were varied from 0 to 500 W and from 0 to 150 W, respectively. GaAs etch rate increased with the increase of ICP source power and RE chuck power. It was also found that etch rate of GaAs in $BCl_3$ gas with 25% Ar addition was superior to that of GaAs in a pure $BCl_3$ (20 sccm $BCl_3$) plasma. The result was same with AlGaAs. We expect that high ion-assisted effect in $BCl_3$/Ar plasma increased etch rates of both materials. The GaAs and AIGaAs features etched at 20 sccm $BCl_3$ and $15BCl_3/5Ar$ with 300 W ICP source power, 100 W RIE chuck power and 7.5 mTorr showed very smooth surfaces(RMS roughness < 2 nm) and excellent sidewall. XPS study on the surfaces of processed GaAs also proved extremely clean surfaces of the materials after dry etching.