Recent progress of photonic devices using clean and fine dry processes

Since dry etching was introduced to III/V semiconductor processing in the 1980´s, significant progress has been achieved not only in the basic study of the plasma chemistry available for GaAs- and InP-based materials, but also in its application to the laser diode (LD), switch, grating and other photonic devices. Current subjects of interest in dry etching are increasing the uniformity and the accuracy of the etched structure for the full wafer process and reducing the etching-induced damage from the device performance point of view. Further issues of dry etching concern new technologies for submicron or nanometer scale devices. This paper describes state-of-the-art topics mainly related to the etching characteristics and device application for the full wafer process This paper describes the state-of-the-art topics mainly related to the etching characteristics and device application for the full wafer process as shown in the lower part of the figure. Novel technologies concerning the in-situ process and nanofabrication will not be discussed here