Photo-selective chemical etching of InAs and GaSb to manufacture microscopic mirrors Article uri icon

abstract

  • Application of Laser-Assisted Chemical Etching (LACE) to n-type GaSb substrates to create cavities with nearly parabolic cross sectioned profiles has been demonstrated. These near-parabolic cavities could be used as micro mirrors or micro lenses to concentrate or deviate light beams emitted from a surface emitting laser diode. To perform the 514 nm line of an Ar laser beam was focused on the substrate with the aid of a lens and a mirror to deviate the light downwards to the surface which was immersed in the etching solution. It was observed that the etching depth could be controlled by varying the exposure time and the incident beam intensity. A linear relation was observed between the etching time and the etching depth. Such results open up the possibility of fabricating monomode unstable cavities for vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCEL), using parabolic micro-mirrors to deviate the lateral beam modes.

publication date

  • 2008-01-01