Hall Effect Calibration of Silicon Doped GaAs Grown by Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE)

Calibration of a molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) system is paramount to ensure accuracy in the properties of the semiconductor materials it makes. Specifically, we need to precisely control semiconductor’s carrier type (electron or hole), carrier density, and carrier mobility. Hall measurement is one of several experimental techniques used to study a material’s electronic properties, and in this study we utilized the Van der Pauw method to take those measurements. We investigated several thin gallium arsenide (GaAs) films doped with different concentrations of silicon, and epitaxially grown on GaAs (001) substrates. The samples were all tested at room temperature with a 0.545 T magnet, which revealed a linear Arrhenius relationship between the electron concentration and the temperature of the silicon source used to dope the sample. From this plot a confident determination of specific electron concentration in future GaAs samples can be prescribed and grown by MBE. The project described was supported by the Idaho State Board of Education through the HERC fellowship program