Variable range hopping conductivity in molecular beam epitaxial InSb

A variable range hopping (VRH) transport mechanism can be induced in molecular beam epitaxial, n-type doped InSb wafers with focussed Ga+ ion beam damage. This technique allows areas of wafer to be selectively damaged and then subsequently processed into gated metal-insulator-semiconductor (MIS) devices where a disordered, two-dimensional (2D) device can be established. At high levels of damage (dose >10(16) Ga+ ions cm(-2)) amorphous crystalline behavior results with activated conductivity characteristic of a three-dimensional system with VRH below 150 K. At lower doses (10(14)-10(16) Ga+ ions cm(-2)) a thermally activated conductivity is induced at similar to 0.9 K, characteristic of Mott phonon-assisted VRH. At 1 K the devices either conduct with conductivity >similar to(e (2)/h) where e is the fundamental charge and h is Planck's constant, or are thermally activated depending on the dose level. The lightly damaged devices show weak antilocalization signals with conductivity characteristic of a 2D electronic system. As the Ga+ dose increases, the measured phase coherence length reduces from similar to 500 nm to similar to 100 nm. This provides a region of VRH transport where phase-coherent transport processes can be studied in the hopping regime with the dimensionality controlled by a gate voltage in an MIS-device.

Automated summary

The study found that n-type doped InSb wafers can exhibit variable range hopping transport mechanism induced by Ga+ ion beam damage, with high damage levels showing three-dimensional behavior and lower doses displaying characteristics of Mott phonon-assisted VRH. Controlling the level of damage can alter the transport properties of the devices, allowing for the study of coherent transport processes in the hopping regime.