Compensation effect in the kinetics of chemical treatment of GaAs, InAs, GaSb, and InSb using bromine-releasing etching compositions based on H2O2–HBr solutions for the development of effective chemical polishing techniques

Abstract

In this work, the kinetic dependences of chemical-dynamic etching of semiconductor compounds GaAs, InAs, GaSb, and InSb in polishing etching mixtures based on H₂O₂–HBr without and with an organic solvent are investigated. Based on the temperature dependence of the polishing kinetics in these systems, the apparent activation energies and pre-exponential factors in the Arrhenius equation for the chemical dissolution of the crystal surfaces were calculated. The existence of a kinetic compensation effect between the activation energy and the pre-exponential factor during the heterogeneous surface polishing process of GaAs, InAs, GaSb, and InSb was established. It was shown that the compensation dependence is not affected by the presence of an organic solvent in the bromine-releasing etching composition or by the chemical nature of the A^IIIB^V-type semiconductor material. The introduction of an organic solvent into the H₂O₂–HBr etching mixture facilitates the transition of the InSb dissolution process from the kinetic to the diffusion-controlled regime.