Amorphous group III–V semiconductors

Abstract

Structural disorder is common to the amorphous Group IV and III–V semiconductors as manifested by an increase in bondlength and Debye-Waller factor and a decrease in coordination number relative to the crystalline phase. A second component of disorder, unique to compound semiconductors, is chemical disorder in the form of homopolar bonding. In this chapter, the application of XAS to the characterisation of both structural and chemical disorder in the amorphous Group III–V semiconductors is described with an emphasis on the identification and quantification of homopolar bonding. We show chemical disorder is characteristic of these materials, comprising ∼5–15 % of all bonds, and also demonstrate that XAS is an ideal technique for such studies. Show more