A processing scheme for the fabrication of embedded W-GaAs contacts has been established and the resulting contact characteristics have been evaluated. The main advantage of these contacts is that they are stable during high-temperature epitaxial overgrowth. The fabrication scheme is based on a liftoff process with electron beam evaporation of tungsten and subsequent epitaxial overgrowth using metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy. Various methods were used to characterize the buried contacts. First, the structural properties of GaAs surrounding embedded W features, with widths down to 50 nm, were characterized by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. Measurements of the conductivity in individual, buried wires were performed in order to study the influence of the overgrowth process on the properties of the tungsten. We also evaluated the current-voltage characteristics for macroscopic contacts, which revealed a clear dependence on processing parameters. Optimized processing conditions could thus be established under which limited contact degradation occurred during overgrowth. Finally, we used the overgrowth technique to perform a detailed investigation of the electrical and optical properties of floating-potential embedded nano-Schottky contacts by space-charge spectroscopy.