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This study presents a comprehensive analysis of the etching effects on β-Ga2O3 using two methods: H2_N2 (a mixture of hydrogen and nitrogen) etching and triethylgallium (TEGa) in situ etching performed in a metal-organic chemical vapor deposition system. By employing a mix of H2 and N2 gases at varying chamber pressures and maintaining a constant etching temperature of 750 °C, we investigated the etching dynamics across three different β-Ga2O3 orientations: (010), (001), and (2¯01). Field emission scanning electron microscopy analysis showed that the etching behavior of β-Ga2O3 depends on the crystal orientation, with the (010) orientation showing notably uniform and smooth surfaces, indicating its suitability for vertical device applications. High-aspect-ratio β-Ga2O3 fin arrays were fabricated on (010) substrates using H2_N2 etching, yielding fin structures with widths of 2 μm and depths of 3.1 μm, along with smooth and well-defined sidewalls. The etching process achieved exceptionally high etch rates (>18 μm/h) with a strong dependence on pressure and sidewall orientation, revealing the trade-off between etch depth and surface smoothness. Separately, TEGa in situ etching was investigated as an alternative etching technique for both β-Ga2O3 and β-(AlxGa1−x)2O3 films. The results revealed that the (010) orientation exhibited relatively high etching rates while maintaining smoother sidewalls and top surfaces, making it favorable for device processing. In contrast, the (001) orientation showed strong resistance to TEGa etching. Furthermore, Al-incorporated β-(AlxGa1−x)2O3 films showed substantially lower etch rates compared to pure β-Ga2O3, suggesting their potential use as an effective etch-stop layer in advanced device fabrication.
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This content will become publicly available on June 6, 2026
Low-loss silicon nitride Kerr-microresonators fabricated with metallic etch masks via metal lift-off
Stoichiometric silicon nitride has emerged as a widely used integrated photonic material owing to its high index of refraction, nonlinear optical properties, and broad transparency window spanning visible to mid-IR frequencies. However, silicon nitride is generally more resistant to reactive ion etching than are typical etch masks made of polymer-based resist. This necessitates resist layers that are significantly thicker than the silicon nitride and results in mask patterns which are tall and narrow. These high-aspect-ratio patterns inhibit the plasma transport of reactive ion etching, which leads to difficulties in accurately reproducing dimensions and creating well-defined, vertical waveguide sidewalls. In this work, we overcome these challenges by developing a metallic etch mask deposited via metal lift-off that provides a 30 : 1 nitride-to-metal etch rate ratio, representing a near 45-fold reduction in the required mask thickness. We demonstrate the validity of this technique by etching microring resonators with near-vertical waveguide sidewalls and intrinsic quality factors of over 1 million. Leveraging the low optical loss of our resonators, we generate optical frequency combs with more than an octave of bandwidth and dual dispersive waves. These results establish metal lift-off as a viable and easy-to-implement technique capable of producing low optical loss waveguides.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2410813
- PAR ID:
- 10620640
- Publisher / Repository:
- ArXivorg
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- arXivorg
- ISSN:
- 2331-8422
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- silicon nitride frequency combs photonic integrated circuits Kerr microresonators microfabrication etching
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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