Fabrication and characterisation of GaAs nanopillars using nanosphere lithography and metal assisted chemical etching

Abstract

. (2016). Fabrication and characterisation of GaAs nanopillars using nanosphere lithography and metal assisted chemical etching. RSC Advances: an international journal to further the chemical sciences, 6 30468-30473.Fabrication and characterisation of GaAs nanopillars using nanosphere lithography and metal assisted chemical etching AbstractWe present a low-cost fabrication procedure for the production of nanoscale periodic GaAs nanopillar arrays, using the nanosphere lithography technique as a templating mechanism and the electrochemical metal assisted etch process (MacEtch). The room-temperature photoluminescence (PL) and Raman spectroscopic properties of the fabricated pillars are detailed, as are the structural properties (scanning electron microscopy) and fabrication process. From our PL measurements, we observe a singular GaAs emission at 1.43 eV with no indications of any blue or green emissions, but with a slight redshift due to porosity induced by the MacEtch process and characteristic of porous GaAs (p-GaAs). This is further confirmed via Raman spectroscopy, where additionally we observe the formation of an external cladding of elemental As around our nanopillar features. The optical emission is enhanced by an order magnitude (~300%) for our nanopillar sample relative to the planar unprocessed GaAs reference. We present a low-cost fabrication procedure for the production of nanoscale periodic GaAs nanopillar arrays, using the nanosphere lithography technique as a templating mechanism and the electrochemical metal assisted etch process (MacEtch). The room-temperature photoluminescence (PL) and Raman spectroscopic properties of the fabricated pillars are detailed, as are the structural properties (scanning electron microscopy) and fabrication process. From our PL measurements, we observe a singular GaAs emission at 1.43 eV with no indications of any blue or green emissions, but with a slight redshift due to porosity induced by the MacEtch process and characteristic of porous GaAs (p-GaAs). This is further confirmed via Raman spectroscopy, where additionally we observe the formation of an external cladding of elemental As around our nanopillar features. The optical emission is enhanced by an order magnitude ($300%) for our nanopillar sample relative to the planar unprocessed GaAs reference.

Plasmon resonances in coupled Babinet complementary arrays in the mid-infrared range

“…1(d). Then, the hole array undergoes metal assisted chemical etching in a 2:5:12 H 2 O 2 (35%):HF(40%): H 2 O solution, where the length of the hexagonally ordered silicon nanopillars can be varied by the etching time [22][23][24]. The resulting structure is a gold film, with an array of circular holes caused by the protruding silicon pillars ( Fig.…”

Fabrication and Characterization of Black GaAs Nanoarrays via ICP Etching

“…III-V compound semiconductor nanostructures have been shown to be promising materials for a variety of optoelectronic and energy-related applications such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs) [7,8], photovoltaics (PV) [9][10][11][12] and field effect transistors (FETs) [13][14][15][16]. GaAs is a promising candidate as its direct bandgap and absorption property [17,18]. When incident light enters the nanostructure, the photons will undergo multiple reflections and refract inside the structure and get trapped in the array, which is the trapping effect of nanostructure.…”

Black GaAs: Gold-Assisted Chemical Etching for Light Trapping and Photon Recycling

“…Then, the substrate can be structured by patterned metal films [32,33] or etched randomly using dispersed metallic particles [24]. In recent years, several attempts aimed to extend MacEtch to III-V group semiconductors [32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43], which yield better device characteristics in light emitting diodes and solar cells compared to mainstream silicon and germanium [44,45]. GaAs structuring via MacEtch has been reported in conjunction with catalyst vacuum depositions [46], or with metal patterning [32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41] by nanoimprint lithography [47], photolithography [20], and microsphere self-assembly [48].…”