High-Temperature Thermoelectric Characterization of III-V Semiconductor Thin Films by Oxide Bonding

A device fabrication and measurement method utilizing a SiO2-SiO2 covalent bonding technique is presented for high-temperature thermoelectric characterization of thin-film III-V semiconductor materials that suffer from the side-effect of substrate conduction at high temperatures. The proposed method includes complete substrate removal, high-temperature surface passivation, and metallization with a Ti-W-N diffusion barrier. A thermoelectric material, thin-film ErAs:InGaAlAs metal/semiconductor nanocomposite grown on a lattice-matched InP substrate by molecular beam epitaxy, was transferred onto a sapphire substrate using the oxide bonding technique at 300A degrees C, and its original InP substrate, which is conductive at high temperatures, was removed. Electrical conductivities and Seebeck coefficients were measured from room temperature to 840 K for this material on both the InP and sapphire substrates, and the measurement results clearly show that the InP substrate effect was eliminated for the sample on the sapphire substrate. A strain experiment has been conducted to investigate the effect of strain on electrical conductivity.