Hydrogen in Dry Etching Processes

From the first successful attempt to apply reverse MOCVD processes for dry etching of InP due to Niggebrügge et al. to the deposition of diamond-like coatings, the application of hydrogen seems to be inevitable in the technology of IV and III/V semiconductor technology. Moreover, hydrogen seems to be absolutely necessary for smooth surfaces and steep angles in III/V semiconductors. It has turned out further that etching of SiO2 and Si3N4 (which are widely used as mask material) can completely be suppressed. This suggests that etching in chlorine-containing plasmas is mainly chemically dominated. Damage caused by the dry etching methods ion beam etching (IBE), reactive ion etching (RIE), and etching in plasmas generated by electron cyclotron resonance (ECRE) is investigated using conventional photoluminescence and Fabry-Perot damping measurements. Finally, a comparison of etch rates of GaN, GaP, and GaAs in hydrogen-driven ECR plasmas is given and discussed using Sigmund's theory of sputtering.