Electrical Properties of Plastically Deformed GaAs

Plastic deformation of n-GaAs having room-temperature carrier concentration of 10 16 cm -3 (resistivity 10 -1 Ωcm) in uniaxial compression is found to produce large increase in resistivity. Specimens deformed less than 4%. have almost similar temperature-resistivity curves to that of the as-grown specimen, while they have resistivity of 4∼300 times as large as that of the as-grown specimen. Specimens deformed more heavily have resistivity of more than 10 5 Ωcm and their tempera-lure-resistivity curves show' the large activation energy of 0.47∼0.62 eV at room temperature. Analyses are made in terms of the percolation theory, in which it is assumed that the space charge regions around dislocations are insulating. The measured activation energy suggests that the dislocation level lies at about the center of the band gap ( E g ∼1.4 eV).