THERMAL DECOMPOSITION OF COMPOUND SEMICONDUCTORS COVERED WITH THIN METALLIC LAYERS

Abstract

The aim of these investigations was to study the processes taking place during the heat treatment of compound semiconductor structures covered with thin metallic layers. This situation models the heat treatment of metallized wafer in the device technology. To investigate these samples a liquid nitrogen cooled UHV system was constructed, and the volatile component loss during the heat treatment was measured with a quadrupole mass spectrometer. The output signals are collected and evaluated by microcomputers. Special care was taken for the precise measurement of the sample to ensure the exact determination of the large peaks in volatile component loss. This method is suitable not only to measure the evaporation of the volatile component during annealing as a function of temperature, but to provide samples annealed in well- controlled circumstances for later investigations. As an example the measurement of the resistance of selected alloyed samples will also be shown.