Faraday-cage-assisted etching of suspended gallium nitride nanostructures

Abstract

We have developed an inductively coupled plasma etching technique using a Faraday cage to create suspended gallium-nitride devices in a single step. The angle of the Faraday cage, gas mix, and chamber condition define the angle of the etch and the cross-sectional profile, which can feature undercut angles of up to 45°. We fabricate singly- and doubly-clamped cantilevers of a triangular cross section and show that they can support single optical modes in the telecom C-band.