A Comparison of Dry Plasma and Wet Chemical Etching of GaSb Photodiodes

Abstract

We report on the performance of GaSb pn junction photodiodes fabricated using electron cyclotron resonance plasma etching using recipe, a mixed gas recipe consisting of and wet chemical etching. Diodes fabricated using recipe show an order of magnitude lower leakage current density and lower ideality factor. The highest value of the zero bias dynamic resistance-area product was obtained for etched diodes and was equal to as compared to for and for wet etching. Spectral responsivity of etched diodes was observed to be three times that of and wet etched diodes. Overall, the diodes etched using the recently reported recipe provided the best optical and electrical characteristics. © 2004 The Electrochemical Society. All rights reserved.