Etching of p-type metal contact deposited on GaAs

In this paper, both wet etching and dry etching of metal contacts deposited on GaAs wafer have been described. A /spl sim/240 nm thin layer of p-type contact was formed on GaAs bulk wafer using Au-Zn-Au layer. Wet etching of the metal contact was done using KI-I/sub 2/ and HNO/sub 3/-HCl etch solutions and the dry etching was performed in an argon plasma reactive ion etcher chamber. Results are discussed for both the etching processes.