Communication—Electrodeposition of Indium Directly on Silicon

Abstract

Direct electrodeposition of indium onto silicon paves the way for advances in microelectronics, photovoltaics, and optoelectronics. Indium is generally electrodeposited onto silicon utilizing a physically or thermally deposited metallic seed layer. Eliminating this layer poses benefits in microelectronics by reducing resistive interfaces and in vapor-liquid-solid conversion to III-V material by allowing direct contact to the single-crystal silicon substrate for epitaxial conversion. We investigated conditions to directly electrodeposit indium onto n-type Si(100). We show that a two-step galvanostatic plating at low temperatures can consistently produce smooth, continuous films of indium over large areas, in bump morphologies, and conformally into inverted pyramids.