Abstract

BANUELOS, José-Guadalupe; BASIUK, Elena V.  and  SANIGER-BLESA, José-Manuel. Morphology of patterned semiconductor III-V surfaces prepared by spontaneous anisotropic chemical etching. Rev. mex. fis. [online]. 2003, vol.49, n.4, pp.310-316. ISSN 0035-001X.

In the present paper we report on scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy study of different microreliefs obtained through a spontaneous anisotropic etching (that is without the use of masking, photochemical and photoelectrochemical techniques) of the surfaces of monocrystalline A^III B^V-type semiconductors: InP(100) doped with S and Fe, GaP(100), GaSb(100), InSb(100) and GaAs(100). The microrelief morphology (star-like, pyramides, grooves, etc.) depends on acidic etchant employed. Estimation of the activation energy demonstrates that the etching with microrelief formation occurs in the kinetic region. The most interesting InP microrelief is the two-dimensional groove-shaped one, which might be suitable to produce antireflection surfaces for solar cells. The conditions have been optimized to fabricate this microrelief with a given groove period of 0.6 to 3.7 µm. Morphology of different textured surfaces of other A^III B^V semiconductors is also discussed.

Keywords : AFM; SEM; microreliefs; anisotropic etching; textured surfaces; A^III B^V semiconductors.