Sputtered III–V Intermetallic Films

Abstract

IN the course of investigating methods for the deposition of films of semi-conductive materials, it was found that the antimonides of indium and gallium can be readily deposited by means of cathodic sputtering. Reactive sputtering has been widely used for several decades for formation of films of oxides and certain other compounds¹; but there seems to have been little interest in the direct sputtering of compound materials. Kane and Wood attempted to produce a sputtered film of Ag₂Te, but obtained rather Ag_2−xTe (ref. 2). Recently, work concerned with sputtering yields for gallium antimonide³ and directional patterns formed by sputtering from single crystal balls of indium antimonide has been reported⁴, but in neither case were properties of the films discussed.