Air-exposure effect on the resistivity of thin bismuth films

A survey of previous studies on vacuum deposited metal films shows that in high frequency measurements, explicit reference to the effect of air-exposure is not made. The present work on bismuth films (in-situ and air-exposed) at dc and rf frequencies, carried out mainly to study the air-exposure effect, shows that in-situ dc and rf and exposed rf all show nearly the same resistivity for thick continuous films. But air-exposed dc film resistances, when compared to in-situ dc resistances, show that the grain boundary reflection coefficient, R _gin Mayadas-Shatzkes model changes from 0·2 to 0·6. This is shown to be due to the grain boundary oxidation. The result is substantiated by rf measurements.