Effects of different masks on GaAs microtips grown by selective liquid-phase epitaxy

We investigate the dependence of selective liquid-phase epitaxial growth of GaAs microtips on different masks, including SiO2 films deposited by liquid-phase deposition and magnetron sputtering separately, aluminium film prepared by vacuum evaporation, and AlGaAs film grown by liquid-phase epitaxy. Scanning electron microscopy is employed to characterize the surface morphologies of the GaAs microtips. The results indicate that well-distributed microtips with high quality can be achieved using either SiO2 film deposited by magnetron sputtering or aluminium film prepared by vacuum evaporation as mask.