Effects of Hydrogen on InP Light-Emitting Devices Etched in a Methane-Hydrogen Environment

Patricia Beck, Hewlett-Packard Laboratorie
Dennis J. Derickson, Hewlett-Packard Lightwave Operations, Santa Rosa, CA
Forrest Kellert, Hewlett-Packard Lightwave Operations, Santa Rosa, CA
Tim Bagwell, Hewlett-Packard Lightwave Operations, Santa Rosa, CA

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4 pages.

Copyright © 1995 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE. The definitive version is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ICIPRM.1995.522221

NOTE: At the time of publication, the author Dennis Derickson was not yet affiliated with Cal Poly.

Abstract

Research has been conducted on the physical damage and hydrogenation effects during RF plasma exposure and epitaxial growth in the III-V material system. Device consequences of this damage or chemical alteration have received less attention, particularly in active light emitting devices. This paper discusses these effects for lasers and edge emitting light-emitting diodes (EELEDs) which use a ridge waveguide structure. By using analysis techniques such as SIMS we have concluded that methane-hydrogen reactive ion etching of InP induces hydrogen levels in an active device which are high enough to significantly alter the device properties. The decrease in light output is substantial, but subsequent annealing times as short as 1 min. at 430°C can restore power dramatically.