Surface contamination and damage from CF4 and SF6 reactive ion etching of silicon oxide on gallium arsenide

Two reactive ion etchants, CF₄ and SF₆, have been compared in terms of plasma characteristics, silicon oxide etch characteristics, extent of RIE damage, and formation of barrier layers on a GaAs surface after oxide etch. It was found that higher etch rates with lower plasma-induced dc bias can be achieved with SF₆ plasma relative to CF₄ plasma and that this correlates with higher atomic fluorine concentration in SF₆ plasma. RIE damage, measured by loss of sheet conductance in a thin highly-doped GaAs layer, could be modelled as a region of deep acceptors at a high concentration in the conductive layer. By relating the sheet conductance change to the modelled damaged layer thickness, it was found that the RIE-damaged thickness from both CF₄ and SF₆ plasmas had the same linear relation to plasma dc bias. Barriers to subsequent GaAs RIE were created during oxide overetch at the GaAs surface. The barriers were identified by XPS as ∼20 A of GaF₃ for CF₄ plasma and ∼30 A of GaF₃ on top of As_xS_y for SF₆ plasma. Ellipsometry was used to routinely determine the presence or absence of the barriers which could be removed in dilute ammonia.