This project is funded by a Presidential Young Investigator award, and involves fundamental research studies of the mechanism and kinetic behavior of oxygen diffusion from thin film encapsulants into gallium arsenide. The effect of substrate dopant concentration and the behavior of buried impurity profiles and defect structures exposed to surface oxidation will also be considered. Matching funds from industry, when secured by the principal investigator, will be applied to a related study of spatially resolved current-voltent measurements of Schottky barriers using a scanning tunneling microscope. This work on fundamental microelectronic materials issues is important for improving our general understanding of microscopic features of synthesis and processing of materials and is of vital importance to the electronics industry.
