Surface modification of III-V compound semiconductors using surface electromagnetic wave etching induced by ultraviolet lasers

The surface modification of semiconductors by laser-induced surface electromagnetic wave (SEW) etching was investigated. With the novel etching method using a holographic exposure system, submicron periodic dot structures were fabricated directly on semiconductor substrates (n-InP, n-GaAs, and InGaAs-InP). Making use of laser polarization dependence in this etching system, a variety of surface modifications could be achieved on the semiconductors. In particular, in the case of using the s-polarization light, periodic submicron dot structures with a geometrical diameter down to 80 nm could be obtained directly using a single-step process without a mask. The InGaAs-InP dot structures were studied optically by means of photoluminescence spectroscopy, and the blue shift of the photoluminescence energy up to 5.36 meV was observed for the smallest dots, which displayed a lateral quantization