Damage in GaAs induced by Ga+focused‐ion‐beam‐assisted Cl2etching is studied by photoluminescence (PL) intensity measurements as functions of ion energy, ion dose, and substrate temperature. By decreasing the ion energy from 10 to 1 keV, the damage depth decrease to 1/5, where damage depth is taken as the thickness at which the PL intensity recovers by wet etching. The damage depth is shallower when the etching yield is larger with the same ion energy. By increasing the ion dose, the normalized PL intensity decreases, but damage depth is nearly constant. Over 1015ion dose, the normalized PL intensity shows a constant value. By increasing the sample temperature, the damage depth becomes shallower. At 150  °C with ion energy of 1 keV, the damage depth is less than 0.5 &mgr;m, which is the detection limit of the PL measurement in GaAs substrate.