Semiconducting behavior in antimony-doped bismuth films

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Abstract
The electric resistivity and Hall effect were studied for the vacuum evaporated and annealed ∠1 at.% Sb-doped bismuth alloy films of various thickness (350–3500 Å) in the temperature range of 77–510 K. Contrary to the behavior of bulk BiSb alloy, where the alloy becomes semiconducting only at about 4 at.% of Sb and above (A.L. Jain, 1959), it is found that thin films of 1% Sb-doped Bi alloy are semiconducting. Moreover, this semiconducting trend begins at about room temperature unlike in bulk BiSb alloys where it is observed only at temperatures below about 180 K. The present type of behavior has been predicted and observed by some earlier workers (Ivanov et al. 1963, 1964). The intercrystalline barrier activation energies determined for various film thicknesses deposited at different substrate temperatures (257 K, 300 K, 373 K) were found to vary with thickness and substrate temperature, activation energy decreasing with increasing thickness and substrate temperature. These observations have been attributed to the film nature of the polycrystalline films (Slater 1956, Espevik 1971, Okuyama 1976, Bednarczyk 1976).

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