Characterization of InP using metal-insulator-semiconductor-tunneling microscopy (MISTM)

Metal-Insulator-Semiconductor Tunneling Microscopy is a new technique for creating a 2 dimensional map of the carrier concentration in a semiconductor. This is done by measuring the tunneling current between a conducting Atomic Force Microscope tip and a semiconductor sample. Here we present the application of this method to InP. By exploring the current voltage characteristics of p- and n-type InP over a large range of voltages and carrier concentrations we find they are well-described by Metal-Insulator-Semiconductor theory. A fitting procedure of this model to the data gave a maximum deviation of 5%.