In situ selective area etching and MOVPE regrowth of GaInAs-InP on InP substrates

The authors present a method for selective in situ etching and regrowth in open stripes in SiO/sub 2/ covered InP-substrates inside a MOVPE (metal-organic vapor-phase epitaxy) reactor. The etching medium was PCl/sub 3/, which was dissociated inside the MOVPE reactor at temperatures between 350 and 580 degrees C. The technique used provides a smooth and homogeneous surface morphology and exactly controllable etching rates down to a few nanometer. This enables the integration, of an etching and regrowth step in one process without transferring the wafer from one machine to another, thus avoiding contamination of a well-prepared surface just before the epitaxial step. At certain etching rates V-grooves can be obtained and regrown with an InP/GaInAs heterostructure; this is a very promising possibility for in situ growing of quantum wires. The authors investigated the morphology of the etched substrates with respect to etching temperature and the crystallographic orientation of the stripes by optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. First experiments on in situ etched and regrown V-grooves have been done.<>