Abstract: The development of well defined and thermally stable ohmic contacts for Ⅲ- Ⅴ semi-conductors like InSb and GaSb is still a challenging problem in semiconductor devicetechnology. As device processing usually includes the exposure to elevated tempera-tures, interface reactions often occur during metallization and further heat treatment.It is thus important to understand the respective phase equilibria of the involved el-ements. From the thermodynamic point of view, binary and ternary compounds inequilibrium with the respective compound semiconductor would be the best choice forcontact materials as these contacts will be stable even after long exposure to elevatedtemperatures. These possible candidates for contact materials may be directly obtainedfrom the phase diagrams.During the last years we investigated several phase diagrams of transition metals withGaSb and InSb. Experimental results in the systems Ga-Ni-Sb, Ga-Pd-Sb, Ga-Pt-Sb,In-Ni-Sb and In-Pd-Sb are summarized and are discussed in the context of contactchemistry.

Key words: contact material, phase diagram, GaSb, InSb