Wet Chemical Etching of Wide Bandgap Semiconductors- GaN, ZnO and SiC

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Wide bandgap semiconductors have many properties that make them attractive for high power, high temperature device applications. In this paper we review wet etching of three important materials, namely ZnO, GaN and SiC. While ZnO is readily etched in many acid solutions including HNO3/HCl and HF/HNO3, and in the nonacid acetyleacetone, the group III nitrides and SiC are very difficult to wet etch and generally dry etching is used. Various etchants for GaN and SiC have been investigated, including aqueous mineral acid and base solutions, and molten salts. Wet etches have a variety of applications to wide bandgap semiconductor technology, including defect decoration, polarity and polytype (for SiC) identification by producing characteristic pits or hillocks, and device fabrication on smooth surfaces. Electrochemical etching is successful at room temperature in some situations for GaN and SiC. In addition, photo-assisted wet etching produces similar rates independent of crystal polarity.