Neutral anodic etching of GaN for vertical or crystallographic alignment

作者：Schwab Mark J^*; Han Jung; Pfefferle Lisa D

来源：Applied Physics Letters, 2015, 106(24): 241603.

DOI：10.1063/1.4922702

Etching of gallium nitride for various device applications has attracted much attention; however, previous reports have all been performed in acidic or basic etchant solutions. Herein, we demonstrate how neutral electrolytes such as NaNO3 or NaCl can be used to rapidly etch n-GaN electrochemically and achieve a porous structure that is either vertically aligned or faceted according to the GaN crystallography, in NaNO3 and NaCl, respectively. It is demonstrated that the etching properties of NaNO3 and HNO3 are very similar, showing that the etching process in this system is surprisingly insensitive to pH. This neutral-pH process enables safer and greener GaN etching, as well as opening up the possibility of crystallographic etching of GaN using an anodic process.

• 出版日期2015-6-15