Electroless plating of gold on GaAs for fast characterization of thin epitaxial layers

The electroless plating of gold on n-type GaAs is shown to be a very fast technique for making Schottky diodes with good reverse characteristics. The method has been applied to the fabrication of very simple structures used for the determination of carrier concentration and drift mobility profiles in thin epitaxial layers grown on semi-insulating GaAs substrates. The procedure and results are described.