Development of InSb dry etch for mid-IR applications
We present a new chlorine-free dry etching process which was used to successfully etch indium antimonide grown on gallium arsenide substrates while keeping the substrate temperature below 150°C. By use of a reflowed photoresist mask a sidewall with 60degree positive slope was achieved, whereas a nearly vertical one was obtained when hard masks were used. Long etch tests demonstrated the non-selectivity of the process by etching through the entire multi-layer epitaxial structure. Electrical and optical measurements on devices fabricated both by wet and dry etch techniques provided similar results, proving that the dry etch process does not cause damage to the material. This technique has a great potential to replace the standard wet etching techniques used for fabrication of indium antimonide devices with a non-damaging low temperature plasma process. Display Omitted Chlorine-free low-temperature dry etch of MBE grown InSb on GaAs60° positive sloped or nearly vertical etch depending on maskNon-selective process etching through Insb, GaSb and GaAsLow damage process with potential to replace standard InSb wet etch
An efficient optical biochemical sensor based on a polyatomic photonic crystal ring resonator
In this paper, we introduce and investigate a design concept for a polyatomic photonic crystal ring resonator (PCRR). In contrast to conventional sensors, this PCRR comprises two different branching waveguides (WG), which are all oriented in the same lattice direction, but with different optical propagation properties due to the binary nature of the diatomic square lattice. Based on this new scheme, an on-chip biochemical sensor is proposed. Electromagnetic analysis, PWE and FDTD numerical techniques, were used to investigate the sensing performance. Our results show that such a sensor can efficiently detect small changes in the refractive index within the sensing area.
Low power ion-beam-assisted etching of indium phosphide
Abstract Ion-beam-assisted etching is a dry etching technique in which the sputter etching component of an ion beam and the chemical etching component supplied by a localized reactive gas flux, such as chlorine, can be independently controlled. In this paper the etching properties of InP as a function of substrate temperature, ion-beam parameters, and reactive chlorine flux in such a system are presented. Sample temperatures greater than 150°C were required to achieve reasonable etch rates and surfaces that were free from an In rich surface layer. By controlling parameters, high aspect ratio structures with vertical side walls and good surface quality were obtained.