Selective etching of ALAs for preparation of III–V semiconductor thin foils

✍ Scribed by Kathleen R. Breen; R. A. Wilson; J. A. McClintock; J. S. Ahearn

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1993
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 862 KB
• Volume: 25
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1059-910X
• DOI: 10.1002/jemt.1070250405

✦ Synopsis

A new method of thin section preparation of 111-V semiconductors and multilayers for transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is presented that exhibits considerable advantages over conventional methods such as ion beam milling and jet thinning. GaAs thin films and multilayers of GaAs/In,Gal_,As/GaAs are grown over a n etch release layer of AlAs on GaAs substrates by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). Planar TEM sections prepared by selective etching from these samples show improved ability to image film morphology and dislocation arrangements, and the resulting large thin electron transparent areas facilitate dislocation density measurements and detection of spatial variations. Avoidance of radiation effects and wedge shaping, both common to ion milled samples, allows this method to be used to prepare uniform thickness standards of single layer GaAs films for EDS analysis or lattice imaging.

Transmission electron microscopy, Planar sections o 1993 Wiley-Liss, Inc.