Laser Photolytic Deposition of Metals on Indium Phosphide

Current interests at British Telecom Research Laboratories include advanced optoelectronic and integrated optics device structures in III–V semiconducting materials. To improve device yields, alternative methods for preparation and fabrication of these structures are evaluated. For example, contact metallisations for III–V optoelectronic devices are conventionally defined by photolithography, a multi-stage process. It has been shown that focused laser beams can be used to pyrolytically or photolytically deposit localised regions of many materials on various substrates, and also for localised etching; a recent review is given in [1].