Effect of hydrostatic pressure on the resistivity of n- and p-type polycrystalline InSb thin films

The effect of hydrostatic pressure on the resistivity of InSb thin films with acceptor/donor concentrations in the range 2 x 10(16) to 2 x 10(19) cm(-3) is investigated at pressure up to 0.8 GPa. Two kinds of films are studied: as vapour grown low mobility (LM) and melt regrown high mobility (HM)) films. The magnitude of the pressure effect in the n-type HM films is close to that in bulk InSb, whereas the magnitude of the effect in the LM films is considerably higher. Moreover, the resistance of the LM films shows an untypical parabolic dependence on pressure. The parabolic dependence is enhanced at low temperatures. As far as we know such a strong dependence of the resistance on pressure has not yet been observed in semiconductor materials. The LM InSb films appear to be a very promising material for high pressure gauges, especially for cryogenic applications. The most promising LM: InSb films for cryogenic pressure sensors are those with electron concentrations between 2 x 10(17) and 5 x 10(18) cm(-3).