Metal-Assisted Photochemical Etching of N- and Ga-Polar GaN Epitaxial Layers

Abstract

The results of studies of photochemical etching processes, which were carried out without applying external voltage, for structures with Ga- and N-polar GaN layers synthesized by molecular-beam epitaxy with the plasma activation of nitrogen are reported. It is shown that the etching rates of layers with different polarities are markedly different. At the same time, the use of gold-based masks instead of titanium-based ones for the etching of GaN layers also provides a means for increasing the rate of layer etching.