The molten KOH/NaOH wet chemical etching of HVPE-grown GaN

Abstract

The hydride vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE) grown GaN samples to precisely measure the surface characteristics was applied to a molten KOH/NaOH wet chemical etching. The etching rate by molten KOH/NaOH wet chemical etching method was slower than that by conventional etching methods, such as phosphoric and sulfuric acid etching, which may be due to the formation of insoluble coating layer. Therefore, the molten KOH/NaOH wet chemical etching is a better efficient method for the evaluation of etch pits density. The grown GaN single crystals were characterized by using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray rocking curve (XRC). The etching characteristics and surface morphologies were studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). From etching results, the optimum etching condition that the etch pits were well independently separated in space and clearly showed their shape, was 410