Removal and Preparation of Electrodeposited Semiconductors for High Impedance Hall Effect Measurements

Abstract

The preparation of electrodeposited semiconductors for Hall effect measurements is complicated by the fact that these materials are, by necessity, attached to highly conducting substrates. As a result, methods were developed to reproducibly remove large area samples from their conducting substrates, and suitably prepared samples were used for temperature‐dependent Hall measurements and resistivity measurements. Apparatus was designed and built to routinely measure Hall voltages as low as 250 μV for source impedances up to 10¹² Ω using films about 1 μm in thickness. Measurements were performed on numerous electrodeposited materials: , , , and . Argon annealed electrodeposited was found to be consistently p‐type, with resistivity values typically 10⁶–10⁷ · Ω · cm p → n conversion of was achieved by diffusion of Cd at high temperature. was also p‐type, but had much lower resistivity and higher carrier concentration than . and were both n‐type with carrier concentrations typically 10¹⁶ cm⁻³ and 10¹⁴–10¹⁶ cm⁻³, respectively.