In this work, the dependence of plasma-chemical
etching rate and the roughness of the surface of gallium arsenide
crater on chloropentafluoroethane (C2F5Cl) concentration in a
mixture with chlorine, forward power and etching duration were
studied. Characteristics of GaAs etching crater were studied
by white light interferometry and scanning electron microscopy.
It is shown that C2F5Cl addition in chlorine-containing inductively
coupled plasma led to a nonlinear change of gallium arsenide
etching rate with time which can be explained by passivation of
substrate surface at the initial stage by products of freon decay.
Along with this, characteristics of the etching profile of GaAs
are significantly improved. Forward power increase contributes
to development of roughness, while the etching rate increases
nonlinearly.