Inductively coupled Ar plasma damage in AlGaAs

Ar inductively coupled plasmas (ICP) are found to produce substantially less ion-induced damage to AlGaAs than electron cyclotron resonance plasmas with the same average ion energy. The do self-bias and hence ion energy is strongly suppressed by increasing ICP source power, while ion flux increases by approximately two orders of magnitude between source powers of 0 and 1500 W. The changes in AlGaAs sheet resistance are due primarily to introduction of deep level compensating defects which reduce both carrier density and mobility.