Indium arsenide, InAs, or indium monoarsenide, is a narrow-bandgap

semiconductor A semiconductor is a material with electrical conductivity between that of a conductor and an insulator. Its conductivity can be modified by adding impurities (" doping") to its crystal structure. When two regions with different doping level ...

composed of

indium Indium is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol In and atomic number 49. It is a silvery-white post-transition metal and one of the softest elements. Chemically, indium is similar to gallium and thallium, and its properties are la ...

and

arsenic Arsenic is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol As and atomic number 33. It is a metalloid and one of the pnictogens, and therefore shares many properties with its group 15 neighbors phosphorus and antimony. Arsenic is not ...

. It has the appearance of grey cubic crystals with a melting point of 942 °C. Indium arsenide is similar in properties to

gallium arsenide Gallium arsenide (GaAs) is a III-V direct band gap semiconductor with a Zincblende (crystal structure), zinc blende crystal structure. Gallium arsenide is used in the manufacture of devices such as microwave frequency integrated circuits, monoli ...

and is a direct bandgap material, with a bandgap of 0.35 eV at room temperature. Indium arsenide is used for the construction of infrared detectors, for the

wavelength In physics and mathematics, wavelength or spatial period of a wave or periodic function is the distance over which the wave's shape repeats. In other words, it is the distance between consecutive corresponding points of the same ''phase (waves ...

range of 1.0–3.8 μm. The detectors are usually photovoltaic

photodiode A photodiode is a semiconductor diode sensitive to photon radiation, such as visible light, infrared or ultraviolet radiation, X-rays and gamma rays. It produces an electrical current when it absorbs photons. This can be used for detection and me ...

s. Cryogenically cooled detectors have lower noise, but InAs detectors can be used in higher-power applications at room temperature as well. Indium arsenide is also used for making diode lasers. InAs is well known for its high electron mobility and narrow energy bandgap. It is widely used as a

terahertz radiation Terahertz radiation – also known as submillimeter radiation, terahertz waves, tremendously high frequency (THF), T-rays, T-waves, T-light, T-lux or THz – consists of electromagnetic waves within the International Telecommunicat ...

source as it is a strong photo-Dember emitter. Quantum dots can be formed in a monolayer of indium arsenide on indium phosphide or gallium arsenide. The mismatches of lattice constants of the materials create tensions in the surface layer, which in turn leads to the formation of the quantum dots. Quantum dots can also be formed in indium gallium arsenide, as indium arsenide dots sitting in the gallium arsenide matrix.

References

Cited sources

External links

Ioffe institute data archive entry

National Compound Semiconductor Roadmap
entry for InAs at ONR web site {{Semiconductor laser Arsenides Indium compounds III-V semiconductors III-V compounds Zincblende crystal structure