AVS 49th International Symposium
    Thin Films Thursday Sessions
       Session TF-ThA

Paper TF-ThA7
Ag Ultra Thin Film Stability on GaAs (110): An ab-initio Study

Thursday, November 7, 2002, 4:00 pm, Room C-101

Session: Ultra Thin Films
Presenter: D.L. Irving, University of Florida
Authors: D.L. Irving, University of Florida
S.B. Sinnott, University of Florida
R.F. Wood, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Correspondent: Click to Email
Metal-semiconductor interfaces are widely utilized in modern device applications. As device sizes are drastically reduced it is essential to have a fundamental understanding of the stability of the ultra thin metallic overlayer on a semiconducting substrate. The Ag(111)/GaAs(110), a system that is known to be non-wetting, has been widely studied in recent years because it has been shown that stable metallic overlayers could be generated by means of a low temperature deposition followed by an anneal to room temperature. The stability of the Ag film was also found to be dependent on the amount of Ag initially deposited onto the GaAs substrate. This research uses density functional theory under the pseudopotential approximation to study the construction of an accurate computational model of this heterogeneous interface. The goal is to determine how strain in the unit cell affects the adhesion of the Ag layer to the GaAs substrate.