Fabrication of microchannels in single-crystal GaN by wet-chemical-assisted femtosecond-laser ablation

Abstract

We investigated micro- and nano-fabrication of wide band-gap semiconductor gallium nitride (GaN) using a femtosecond (fs) laser. Nanoscale craters were successfully formed by wet-chemical-assisted fs-laser ablation, in which the laser beam is focused onto a single-crystal GaN substrate in a hydrochloric acid (HCl) solution. This allows efficient removal of ablation debris produced by chemical reactions during ablation, resulting in high-quality ablation. However, a two-step processing method involving irradiation by a fs-laser beam in air followed by wet etching, distorts the shape of the crater because of residual debris. The threshold fluence for wet-chemical-assisted fs-laser ablation is lower than that for fs-laser ablation in air, which is advantageous for improving fabrication resolution since it reduces thermal effects. We have fabricated craters as small as 510 nm by using a high numerical aperture (NA) objective lens with an NA of 0.73. Furthermore, we have formed three-dimensional hollow microchannels in GaN by fs-laser direct-writing in HCl solution.