Patent ID: 8093685

Claim:
A nitride compound semiconductor element including a substrate having an upper face and a lower face and a semiconductor multilayer structure supported by the upper face of the substrate, such that the substrate and the semiconductor multilayer structure have at least two cleavage planes, comprising: at least one cleavage inducing member whose planar shape is a quadrangle having one angle not equal to 90°, the at least one cleavage inducing member in contact with one of the at least two cleavage planes wherein a length of the at least one cleavage inducing member along a direction parallel to the one of the at least two cleavage planes is smaller than a length of the upper face of the substrate along the direction parallel to the one of the at least two cleavage planes, and wherein the at least one cleavage inducing member is composed of a mask layer formed on the upper face of the substrate or in the semiconductor multilayer structure, wherein the upper face of the substrate has a rectangular shape, and the at least one cleavage inducing member is positioned in at least one of four corners of the upper face of the substrate.