Smart-cut-like laser slicing of GaN substrate using its own nitrogen

Atsushi Tanaka; Ryuji Sugiura; Daisuke Kawaguchi; Toshiki Yui; Yotaro Wani; Tomomi Aratani; Hirotaka Watanabe; Hadi Sena; Yoshio Honda; Yasunori Igasaki; Hiroshi Amano

doi:10.1038/s41598-021-97159-w

Smart-cut-like laser slicing of GaN substrate using its own nitrogen

Sci Rep. 2021 Sep 9;11(1):17949. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-97159-w.

Authors

Atsushi Tanaka^{1

2}, Ryuji Sugiura³, Daisuke Kawaguchi³, Toshiki Yui³, Yotaro Wani³, Tomomi Aratani³, Hirotaka Watanabe⁴, Hadi Sena⁴, Yoshio Honda⁴, Yasunori Igasaki³, Hiroshi Amano^{4

5}

Affiliations

¹ Center for Integrated Research of Future Electronics (CIRFE), Institute of Materials and Systems for Sustainability (IMaSS), Nagoya University, Aichi, 464-8601, Japan. a_tanaka@nuee.nagoya-u.ac.jp.
² National Institute for Materials Science, Tsukuba, 987-6543, Japan. a_tanaka@nuee.nagoya-u.ac.jp.
³ Electron Tube Division, Research & Development Department, Hamamatsu Photonics K. K., Shizuoka, 438-0193, Japan.
⁴ Center for Integrated Research of Future Electronics (CIRFE), Institute of Materials and Systems for Sustainability (IMaSS), Nagoya University, Aichi, 464-8601, Japan.
⁵ National Institute for Materials Science, Tsukuba, 987-6543, Japan.

Abstract

We have investigated the possibility of applying lasers to slice GaN substrates. Using a sub-nanosecond laser with a wavelength of 532 nm, we succeeded in slicing GaN substrates. In the laser slicing method used in this study, there was almost no kerf loss, and the thickness of the layer damaged by laser slicing was about 40 µm. We demonstrated that a standard high quality homoepitaxial layer can be grown on the sliced surface after removing the damaged layer by polishing.