Chemically assisted ion beam etching of laser diode facets on nonpolar and semipolar orientations of GaN

We demonstrate a vertical (< 1 degrees departure) and smooth (2.0 nm root mean square line-edge roughness (LER)) etch by chemically assisted Ar ion beam etching (CAIBE) in Cl-2 chemistry that is suitable for forming laser diode (LD) facets on nonpolar and semipolar oriented III-nitride devices. The etch profiles were achieved with photoresist masks and optimized CAIBE chamber conditions including the platen tilt angle and Cl-2 flow rate. Co-loaded studies showed similar etch rates of similar to 60 nm min(-1) for (20<(2)over bar>(1) over bar), (20 (2) over bar1), and m-plane orientations. The etched surfaces of LD facets on these orientations are chemically dissimilar (Ga-rich versus N-rich), but were visually indistinguishable, thus confirming the negligible orientation dependence of the etch. Continuous-wave blue LDs were fabricated on the semipolar (20 (2) over bar(1) over bar) plane to compare CAIBE and reactive ion etch (RIE) facet processes. The CAIBE process resulted in LDs with lower threshold current densities due to reduced parasitic mirror loss compared with the RIE process. The LER, degree of verticality, and model of the 1D vertical laser mode were used to calculate a maximum uncoated facet reflection of 17% (94% of the nominal) for the CAIBE facet. The results demonstrate the suitability of CAIBE for forming high quality facets for high performance nonpolar and semipolar III-N LDs.