Bell Telephone Laboratories

Robert J McCoy

Henryk Temkin

Vassilis G Keramidas

Chuan C Chang

Shohei Nakahara

Tan T Sheng

Felix Ermanis

An ohmic contact to a semiconductor device comprising p-type InP is formed by sequentially depositing beryllium-gold and gold layers on InP and then heat-treating the device at a temperature less than 440 degrees C. An ohmic contact to p-type InGaAsP can be similarly formed.

Beryllium-gold ohmic contact to a semiconductor device

Ohmic contact to p-type InP

A semiconductor device with a low resistance ohmic contact, strongly adherent to the n-type surface of a body (11) of Group III-V compound semiconductor is obtained by a process including the sequential deposition of gold (13), tin (14) and gold (15) at a surface temperature of less than 200 degrees C followed by a heat treatment in a nonoxidizing atmosphere. This process has shown particular advantage when applied to aluminum containing compound semiconductors (e.g., gallium aluminum arsenide). For such use an initial deposition of aluminum (16) has proven particularly successful in producing consistently low resistance ohmic contacts. The invention has been used in the production of light emitting diodes.

Gold-tin-gold ohmic contact to N-type group III-V semiconductors

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Chatham, NJ, United States of America

Robert J McCoy