Highly controllable electrochemical etching of InP studied by voltammetry and scanned probe microscope

Electrochemical etching of n-InP surfaces is studied by using voltammetry, XPS, in situ electrochemical STM, ex situ AFM and SEM measurements in order to characterize and optimize the etching process. The voltammograms indicated occurrence of the active-passive transition. The surfaces etched by the optimal anodic condition were clean and featureless with an rms roughness of 2.5 nm, whereas the surfaces obtained in the passive region were porous. The optimum avalanche pulse etching mode realized an extremely high etch depth controllability of 6/spl times/10/sup -5/ nm/pulse.