Evolution of interface properties of electrodeposited Ni/GaAs(001) contacts upon annealing.

We demonstrate how epitaxial FM (Ni) films can be grown by ECD directly onto GaAs(001) without outdiffusion or surface segregation of As or Ga. The thickness dependence of electrical and magnetic properties (saturation magnetic moment) verify the good quality of the layers and indicate that electrochemical deposition is a suitable candidate for the growth of epitaxial Ni films with sharp interfaces on GaAs(001). X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis on electroplated (epitaxial) Ni films showed no interdiffusion for annealing up to 250 °C. Annealing at higher temperatures, up to 350 °C, significantly increases both the As outdiffusion and the Schottky barrier heights, which indicates the correlation between intermixing and the diode quality. © 2004 American Institute of Physics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]