Healing kinetics of interfacial voids in GaAs wafer bonding

Abstract

A periodic structure of bonded GaAs wafers has been proposed for quasi-phase-matched second-harmonic generation. After bonding, voids were formed at the interface due to the natural topographical irregularities and contamination on the wafer surface. Within the voids, crystallites with diamond-shaped and dendritic geometries were found, which corresponded to the bonded regions. In this study, artificial voids were introduced at the bonded interface to study the growth kinetics of these crystallites, that is the healing kinetics of these voids. It was found that the crystallite geometries and the growth rates are controlled by the nucleation of new surface layers on the bonded planes, which was the slowest stage during the healing process. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics.