Fe Doping and Preparation of Semi-Insulating InP by Wafer Annealing under Fe Phosphide Vapor Pressure

Semi-insulating (SI) InP has been industrially produced by doping Fe atoms as deep acceptors. Fe concentrations in InP are, however, largely varied from top to tail along the crystal growth axis due to impurity segregation. In the present work, we have examined the possibility of vapor-phase Fe doping for fabrication of 50- and 75-mm-diameter SI InP wafers with constant Fe concentrations using a wafer annealing procedure. A small amount of Fe was charged with red phosphorus in ampoules in which InP wafers were annealed. It was found that the vapor-phase doping is effective for Fe doping of InP. The present technology can be applied for the fabrication of low Fe-doped SI InP wafers with similar Fe concentrations of all wafers from one InP ingot.