Light-Guided Etching for III-V Semiconductor Device Fabrication

The rapid, ultraviolet-induced aqueous etching produces vertical, high aspect features in GaAs samples of different crystal orientations. Much of the speed and anisotropy of the etching is attributed to the formation of efficient hollow, optical waveguides. These guides have been characterized by measuring the optical loss and the field distribution within the guide. The optical loss is typically small and does not restrict the etching of deep features.