Selective-area MOVPE fabrication of GaAs hexagonal air-hole arrays on GaAs(111)B substrates using flow-rate modulation mode

GaAs hexagonal air-hole arrays fabricated by selective-area metal-organic vapour phase epitaxy (SA-MOVPE) on patterned GaAs(111)B substrates are promising for applications to hexagonal air-hole-type two-dimensional photonic crystal (2D-PhC) slabs, because the grown structures exhibit smooth flat surfaces surrounded by crystal facets. In this paper, we describe SA-MOVPE carried out under various gas-flow sequences in order to reduce the growth temperature, and to obtain uniform air-hole arrays without lateral over-growth (LOG). We found that the growth rate in the pattern region and LOG were closely related to the effective As coverage and the desorption rate of the source materials. By optimizing SA-MOVPE, we obtained uniform hexagonal air-hole arrays with almost no LOG for arrays with 500-400 nm periodicity using alternate supply of the source materials (flow-rate modulation epitaxy mode). Finally, we successfully fabricated air-bridge-type hole arrays using selective etching of a sacrificial layer for vertical confinement of light in 2D-PhCs