Four-terminal methods for resistivity measurement of semiconducting materials
OwnerChunong Qiu, Cindy X. Qiu +1inventors
InventorsChunong Qiu, Cindy X. Qiu, Steven Shuyong Xiao
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
This invention provides an innovative multi-line structure and an effective four-terminal method for the resistivity measurement of semiconductor materials. The multi-line structure and the four-terminal method not only allow one to perform resistivity measurement on any inorganic and organic semiconductor thin film conveniently, rapidly and accurately but also offer the means to study resistivity uniformity across the semiconductor thin film.
Claims20
A multi-line structure for four-terminal resistivity measurement of a semiconductor comprising:
- a substrate,
- at least four parallel conducting lines of an equal length deposited on a front surface of said substrate, each of said conducting lines has a thickness, a line width and a spacing between adjacent conducting lines, wherein said conducting lines and said spacings form an active area, said active area has a width and a length equal to said length of said parallel conducting lines,
- at least four contact pads, each of said contact pads is connected to an end of one of said parallel conducting lines through a connection section, wherein any of four said parallel conducting lines and corresponding contact pads form a four-line substructure, and
- a semiconductor thin film with a thickness covers at least said active area, said thickness of said semiconductor thin film is much smaller than said length or said width of said active area.
A method for four-terminal resistivity measurement of a semiconductor using a multi-line structure comprising the steps of:
- forming a multi-line structure on a substrate using a conducting material, said multi-line structure comprises at least four parallel conducting lines of equal length and at least four contact pads, each of said parallel conducting lines has a spacing between adjacent lines and is connected to one of said contact pads, wherein all said parallel conducting lines and spacings form an active area with a length and a width, whereas any of four said parallel conducting lines and corresponding contact pads form a four-line substructure,
- forming a semiconductor thin film to cover at least said active area of said multi-line structure, thickness of said semiconductor thin film is much smaller than said length or said width of said active area,
- selecting a four-line substructure in said multi-line structure,
- applying an electrical current to two outer lines of said four-line substructure,
- measure the voltage between two inner lines of said four-line substructure, and
- calculate resistivity of said semiconductor thin film between said two inner lines of said four-line substructure.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.