Structural and optical properties of vapor-etched porous GaAs

This paper consists to present first results concerning the structure of porous GaAs layer (por-GaAs-L) prepared by using HF/HNO 3 as acidic solution in vapor etching (VE) method. In order to clarify this method, we detail here its principle and explain how por-GaAs-Ls are formed, taking into account the influencing of the exposure time of the GaAs substrate to the acid vapor. The etched GaAs layers have been investigated by UV–visible and PL analysis. One porous layer was performed to be characterised by Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), FTIR spectroscopy, and X-Ray Diffraction (XRD). The porous structure was constituted by a nanocrystals with an average size about 6 nm. These nanocrystals were calculated from XRD peak using Scherrer׳s formula, AFM imaging, and also by using effective mass approximation model from effective band gap.