The synthesis and properties of low barrier Ag-Ga intermetallic contacts to n-type GaAs

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Abstract
It is demonstrated that uniform silver‐gallium alloy films, containing up to 30% gallium, can be controllably and reproducibly fabricated by electron‐beam evaporation from a single alloy source. As expected from bulk thermodynamic arguments, these films are metallurgically stable with respect to GaAs up to their melting point. The alloying of silver with gallium results in a substantial reduction in n‐type barrier height. Analogous increases in barrier height were observed for contacts to p‐type material. Barrier heights as low as 0.59–0.62 eV were measured for annealed ζ‐AgGa contacts to n‐type material.