Cleaning of residual silicon on InP regrowth interface in MOVPE reactor

Investigating the use of tertiarybutylchloride (TBCl) to clean residual silicon from InP regrowth interfaces in an MOVPE reactor, we found the amount of the residual silicon to be greatly decreased when trimethylindium was supplied together with TBCl in order to balance the etching rate and the growth rate during the cleaning process. Using this cleaning process in the fabrication of buried hetero-structure laser diodes, we demonstrated that it improves their light-current characteristics by reducing the leakage current in the devices.