Anisotropic lateral oxidation of Al-III–V semiconductors: inverse problem and circular aperture fabrication

The lateral wet oxidation of aluminum-containing III–V-semiconductors is a technological process which converts a buried (thin) cristalline material into an amorphous insulator and, as such, tends to exhibit an anisotropic behavior. As a result, the shape of the interface between the semiconductor and the insulator, often referred as the oxide aperture, differs from the etched mesa contour from which the oxidation proceeds. This, in turn, complicates the design of the devices relying on this process especially when specific oxide patterns are needed. In this paper, we introduce a method based on a morphological dilatation to determine the shape of the mesas which will lead to a specific targetted contour upon an anisotropic oxidation over a modest extent. The approach is experimentally validated by demonstrating the fabrication of circular oxide apertures which are inherently difficult to make because of their high degree of symmetry but which also turn out to be of critical importance in obtaining efficient single-mode vertical-cavity surface-emittting lasers. (paper)