Anisotropy mechanical behavior of crystals based on gallium arsenide cleavage processing

Abstract In order to promote the cleavage technology of GaAs, this paper explored the influence of the crystallographic orientation of mechanical properties on the quality of cleavage plane. Systematic theoretical models of certain key mechanical properties were proposed, and the mechanism of crack formation along two different directions during the cleavage process was discussed. The indentation tests were used to evaluate the crack formation and indentation morphology. A series of cleavage experiments were carried out to investigate the influence of mechanical properties and crack formation on the cleavage process. The results show that the Young’s modulus, Poisson’s ratio and Vickers hardness in the (100) plane along the directions are 121.26GPa, 0.02 and 5.757GPa, respectively, and the values along the directions are 85.26GPa, 0.31 and 6.091GPa, respectively. Combining theoretical calculations and indentation test results, the average fracture toughness in the directions is approximately 10.94% higher than that in the directions. Meanwhile, scratching along the directions helps reduce the damage width. The {110} plane is a favorable cleavage plane in GaAs. These findings indicate that cleaving along the directions with a low fracture toughness is much easier to obtain a smooth cleavage plane. In addition, this paper proposed a usable theoretical and experimental approach to calculate mechanical properties for obtaining high-quality cleavage planes that can be widely used in other semiconductor materials.