Patent 7760785 was granted and assigned to NEC Corporation on July, 2010 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A method of forming a partially etched nitride-based compound semiconductor crystal layer includes the following steps. A non-crystal layer of a nitride-based compound semiconductor is formed. At least a part of the non-crystal layer is then etched to form a partially etched non-crystal layer before the partially etched non-crystal layer is crystallized to form a partially etched nitride-based compound semiconductor crystal layer.