Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) films were deposited on a number of semi-conductor materials using reactive r. f sputtering technique to form both rectifying Schottky and ohmic contacts. These contacts were applied in the fabrication of a number of novel optoelectronic devices: Schottky photo-diodes, transparent gate High Electron Mobility Transistors (HEMTs), heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs) being used as heterojunction phototransistors (HPTs), light emitting diodes (LEDs) and vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs). A number ofthese novel devices were studied in comparatively greater detail; these were the Schottky diode and the HPT. Deposition conditions necessary to produce ITO films with high conductivity and optical transparency over a wide spectral range were studied and optimised. Separate post deposition techniques were developed to produce near ideal rectifying contacts and ohmic contacts with low contact resistance respectively. A thin film of indium (In) was also used to optimise ITO ohmic contacts to n + - GaAs substrates. Near ideal Schottky diodes were realised on n-GaAs substrates using aluminium (AI) and gold (Au) metal contacts. A simulation model was then developed and implemented to study the behaviour of current transport mechanisms over a wide temperature range. Photodiodes with ITO as the Schottky metal contact were fabricated and a study comprising of both their electrical and optical behaviour was undertaken. Relatively large geometry HBTs and HPTs were fabricated using AIGaAs/GaAs, InGaP/GaAs and InPlInGaAs systems respectively; the latter devices were first reported as a result of this study. A comparative study between devices fabricated from these systems were then made. This was followed by an appraisal of the electrical properties of each of their optical counterparts which had ITO emitter contacts. The specific photo responsivity and the spectral responses of these HPTs were analysed. In light of HPTs with transparent ITO emitter ohmic contacts, a brief examination of the merits of vertical versus lateral illumination was also made in this work. Finally a spectral response model was developed to understand and help design optoelectronic detectors comprising of single layer devices (n-GaAs Schottky photo diodes) or multiple semiconductor materials (HPTs using AIGaAs/GaAs or InPlInGaAs systems) to help predict responsivities at a given incident wavelength. As well as material properties of the constituent semiconductors, this model takes into account the specific lateral and vertical geometrical dimensions of the device.