We have successfully used a thin layer (∼200 Å) of annealed low-temperature GaAs (LT-GaAs) to reduce ion damage that would occur during the formation of a dry-etch gate recess of a high electron mobility transistor. Compared to structures without an ion damage blocking layer, the devices with a thin layer of LT-GaAs are more robust against ion damage. This is important for the application of ion-assisted processing to the fabrication of electronic devices, such as dry etching used to achieve gate recessing. ©1997 American Institute of Physics.