Numerical simulation study of current–voltage characteristics of a Schottky diode with inverse doped surface layer

The Poisson’s equation and drift–diffusion equations are used to simulate the current–voltage characteristics of Schottky diode with an inverse doped surface layer. The potential inside the bulk semiconductor near the metal–semiconductor contact is estimated by simultaneously solving these equations, and current as a function of bias through the Schottky diode is calculated for various inverse layer thicknesses and doping concentrations. The Schottky diode parameters are then extracted by fitting of simulated current–voltage data into thermionic emission diffusion equation. The obtained diode parameters are analyzed to study the effect of inverse layer thickness and doping concentration on the Schottky diode parameters and its behavior at low temperatures. It is shown that increase in inverse layer thickness and its doping concentration give rise to Schottky barrier height enhancement and a change in the ideality factor. The temperature dependences of Schottky barrier height and ideality factor are studied. The effect of temperature dependence of carrier mobility on the Schottky diode characteristics is also discussed.     

Effect of Inverse Doped Surface Layer in Schottky Barrier Modification: A Numerical Study

Poisson’s equation and the drift–diffusion equations are used to simulate the current–voltage characteristics of a Schottky diode with an inverse doped surface layer. The potential inside the bulk semiconductor near the metal–semiconductor contact is estimated by simultaneously solving these equations, and then current as a function of bias through the Schottky diode is calculated. The Schottky diode parameters are extracted by fitting of simulated data to the thermionic emission diffusion equation. The simulation is carried out for various inverse layer thicknesses and doping concentrations. The obtained diode parameters are analyzed to study the effect of the inverse layer thickness and doping concentration on Schottky diode modification and its behavior at low temperatures. It is shown that an increase in the inverse layer thickness and doping concentration leads to Schottky barrier height enhancement and a change in the ideality factor. The temperature dependences of the Schottky barrier height and ideality factor are also studied.     

Barrier height and ideality factor dependency on identically produced small Au/p-Si Schottky barrier diodes

Small high-quality Au/P-Si Schottky barrier diodes (SBDs) with an extremely low reverse leakage current using wet lithography were produced. Their effective barrier heights (BHs) and ideality factors from current-voltage (Ⅰ-Ⅴ) characteristics were measured by a conducting probe atomic force microscope (C-AFM). In spite of the identical preparation of the diodes there was a diode-to-diode variation in ideality factor and barrier height parameters. By ex-trapolating the plots the built in potential of the Au/p-Si contact was obtained as Vbi = 0.5425 V and the barrier height value φB(C-V) was calculated to be φB(C-V) = 0.7145 V for Au/p-Si. It is found that for the diodes with diameters smaller than 100 μm, the diode barrier height and ideality factor dependency to their diameters and correlation between the diode barrier height and its ideality factor are nonlinear, where similar to the earlier reported different metal semi-conductor diodes in the literature, these parameters for the here manufactured diodes with diameters more than 100μm are also linear. Based on the very obvious sub-nanometer C-AFM produced pictures the scientific evidence behind this controversy is also explained.     

Current–voltage characteristics of Schottky diode simulated using semiconductor device equations

The Poisson's equation and the drift diffusion equations have been used to simulate the current–voltage characteristics of Schottky diode. The potential variation inside the bulk semiconductor near the metal–semiconductor contact was estimated first and then the current as a function of bias through the Schottky diode using silicon parameters were calculated over a wide temperature range. From the simulated current–voltage characteristics the diode parameters were extracted by fitting of current–voltage data into thermionic emission diffusion current equation. The derived barrier parameters are analysed to study the effect of various parameters, e.g. semiconductor thickness, doping concentration, temperature dependence of carrier mobility and energy band gap, on the current–voltage characteristics of Schottky diode in view of the thermionic emission diffusion current equations.     

Controlling of electronic parameters of GaAs Schottky diode by poly(3,4-ethylenedioxithiophene)-block-poly(ethylene glycol) organic interlayer

The electronic properties of metal-organic semiconductor-inorganic semiconductor structure between GaAs and poly(3,4-ethylenedioxithiophene)-block-poly(ethylene glycol) organic film have been investigated via current-voltage and capacitance-voltage methods. The Au/PEDOT/n-GaAs contact exhibits a rectification behavior with the barrier height of 0.69 eV and ideality factor value of 3.94. The barrier height of the studied diode (0.67 eV) is lower than that of Ni/n-GaAs/In (0.85 eV) and Au/n-GaAs/In Schottky diodes. The decrease in barrier height of Au/n-GaAs/In Schottky diode is likely to be due to the variation in the space charge region in the GaAs. The obtained results indicate that control of the interfacial potential barrier for metal/n-GaAs diode was achieved using thin interlayer of the poly(3,4-ethylenedioxithiophene)-block-poly(ethylene glycol).     

蒙特卡罗方法模拟金属-半导体接触的直接隧穿效应

运用自洽的蒙特卡罗方法模拟了肖特基接触的隧穿效应 .模拟的内容包括具有不同的势垒高度的金属 -半导体接触在正向和反向偏置下的工作状态 .分析模拟结果可知 ,隧穿电流在反向偏置下起主要的作用 .同时还模拟了引入肖特基效应后 ,SBD的工作特性 ,验证了模拟使用的物理模型 .得到了与理论计算值符合的模拟结果 .分析模拟结果表明 ,由于肖特基效应形成的金属 -半导体接触势垒的降低 ,会在很大程度上影响金属 -半导体接触的输运特性     

The current-voltage-temperature characteristics of Al/NPB/p-Si contact

The current-voltage (I-V) characteristics of the Al/NPB/p-Si contact shows rectifying behavior with a potential barrier formed at the contact interface. The barrier height and ideality factor values of 0.65 eV and 1.33 are measured at the forward bias of the diode. The barrier height of the Al/NPB/p-Si diode at room temperature is larger that (∼0.58 eV) of conventional Al/p-Si diode. It reveals the NPB organic film control the carrier transport of the diode at the contact interface. The temperature effect on the I-V measurement is also performed to reveal the junction characteristics. The ideality factor of the Al/NPB/p-Si contact increases with decreasing temperature. And the barrier height decreases with decreasing temperature. The effects are due to the existence of the interface states and the inhomogeneous of the barrier at the junction.     

无凹槽AlGaN/GaN肖特基势垒二极管正向电流输运机制

研究了无凹槽AlGaN/GaN肖特基势垒二极管(SBD)的正向电流输运机制。分别采用Ni/Au和TiN作为阳极金属材料制备了无凹槽AlGaN/GaN SBD,对比了两种SBD的直流特性。并通过测量器件的变温I-V特性,研究了器件的正向电流输运机制。结果表明,TiN-SBD(0.95 V@1 mA·mm^-1)与Ni/Au-SBD(1.15 V@1 mA·mm^-1)相比实现了更低的开启电压,从而改善了正向导通特性。研究发现两种SBD的势垒高度和理想因子都强烈依赖于环境温度,通过引入势垒高度的高斯分布模型解释了这种温度依赖性,验证了正向电流输运机制为与势垒高度不均匀分布相关的热电子发射机制。     

6H-SiC Schottky二极管的正向特性

提出了一种考虑Schottky结势垒不均匀性和界面层作用的Si C Schottky二极管( SBD)正向特性模型,势垒的不均匀性来自于Si C外延层上的各种缺陷,而界面层上的压降会使正向Schottky结的有效势垒增高.该模型能够对不同温度下Si C Schottky结正向特性很好地进行模拟,模拟结果和测量数据相符.它更适用于考虑器件温度变化的场合,从机理上说明了理想因子、有效势垒和温度的关系.     

肖特基接触的机理及不均匀性研究

对一般情况下肖特基接触的机理和肖特基势垒高度的影响因素做了系统分析,研究了肖特基接触特性的不均匀性及其原因,指出多晶界面势垒高度比同种材料的要低。通过实验,研究了金属/n-poly-Si0.83Ge0.17肖特基结的I-V-T特性,得到了势垒高度及影响因子与测试温度和外加偏压的依赖关系。研究发现:随着测试温度升高,表观理想因子变小,肖特基势垒高度变大;外加偏压增大,表观势垒高度和理想因子均变大。基于肖特基接触的不均匀性进行建模,得到了退火样品的表观势垒高度和理想因子近似为线性负相关的结论。     

Effect of KOH treatment on the Schottky barrier inhomogeneity in Ni/n-GaN

The effect of KOH treatment on the Schottky barrier inhomogeneity in Ni/n-GaN Schottky diodes was investigated. It was observed that both the barrier heights and ideality factors varied from diode to diode with a linear relationship between barrier height and ideality factor, indicating the presence of a lateral inhomogeneity in the Schottky barrier. Simple extrapolation of the straight line obtained from the linear fitting to the barrier height versus ideality factor plot to the image-force controlled ideality factor produced the lateral homogeneous barrier heights, which were higher than those from current–voltage measurements. Furthermore, Gaussian fitting to the distribution of barrier heights exhibited the increased barrier height with the smaller standard deviation after KOH treatment, implying the improved barrier homogeneity. A possible explanation for this behavior can be an improvement of the Ni/n-GaN interface intrinsic properties, e.g., through a reduction of the surface states acting as low barrier region.     

Effect of annealing temperature on the electrical characteristics of Platinum/4H-SiC Schottky barrier diodes

Pt/4H-SiC Schottky barrier diodes have been fabricated to investigate the effect of annealing on the electrical characteristics of the fabricated devices. The parameters such as barrier height, ideality factor and donor concentration were deduced from the current–voltage (I–V) and the capacitance–voltage (C–V) measurements at room temperature. Diodes showed non-ideal behaviour like high value of ideality factor and lower value of barrier height. A barrier height of 1.82?eV was obtained from C–V measurements and it was 1.07?eV when obtained from the I–V measurements with ideality factor 1.71 for as-deposited diodes at room temperature. The diodes, therefore, were annealed in the temperature range from 25°C to 400°C to observe the effect of annealing temperature on these parameters. Schottky barrier height and ideality factors were found to be temperature-dependent. After rapid thermal annealing upto 400°C, a barrier height of 1.59?eV from C–V measurements and the value of 1.40?eV from I–V measurements with ideality factor 1.12 were obtained. Barrier heights deduced from C–V measurements were consistently larger than those obtained from I–V measurements. To come to terms with this discrepancy, we re-examined our results by including the effect of ideality factor in the expression of the barrier height. This inclusion of ideality factor results in reasonably good agreement between the values of barrier height deduced by the above two methods. We believe that these improvements in the electrical parameters result from the improvement in the quality of interfacial layer.     

Electrical parameters of a DC sputtered Mo/n-type 6H-SiC Schottky barrier diode

A Mo/n-type 6H-SiC/Ni Schottky barrier diode (SBD) was fabricated by sputtering Mo metal on n-type 6H-SiC semiconductor. Before the formation of Mo/n-type 6H-SiC SBD, an ohmic contact was formed by thermal evaporation of Ni on n-type 6H-SiC and annealing at 950 °C for 10 min. It was seen that the structure had excellent rectification. The electrical parameters were extracted using its current–voltage (I–V) and capacitance–voltage (C–V) measurements carried out at room temperature. Very high (1.10 eV) barrier height and 1.635 ideality factor values were reported for Mo/n-type 6H-SiC using ln I–V plot. The barrier height and series resistance values of the diode were also calculated as 1.413 eV and 69 Ω from Norde׳s functions, respectively. Furthermore, 1.938 eV barrier height value of Mo/n-type 6H-SiC SBD calculated from C–V measurements was larger than the one obtained from I–V data.     

Enhancement in electrical properties of Au/n-GaAs Schottky diodes exposed to 60Co gamma rays

The effect of γ-ray exposure on the electrical characteristics of Au/n-GaAs Schottky barrier diodes has been investigated using current–voltage and capacitance–voltage techniques. The results indicate that irradiation with a cumulative dose of 10 Mrad (Si) improves the electrical characteristics of the diode. The parameters like ideality factor, series resistance and reverse leakage current determined from the current–voltage data decreases, whereas the barrier height and rectification ratio increases upon irradiation. The effective barrier height deduced from the capacitance–voltage technique has also increased with irradiation. The irradiated diode shows a higher carrier concentration compared to the virgin diode. The observed overall improvement in the diode quality is attributed to the annealing effect of γ-rays.     

Current transport and formation of energy structures in narrow Au/n-GaAs Schottky diodes

The current transport and formations of potential barrier height in narrow Au/n-GaAs Schottky diodes (SD) with a contact surface in length of 200 μm, width of 1 and 4 μm have been investigated.It was determined that features of current transport are in good agreements with the thermionic emission theory in the forward bias as like high-quality conventional (flat) SD. Features of current transport in the reverse bias also is well described by thermionic emission theory, but it has specific features unlike I–V characteristics flat SD.Forward bias of narrow SD current–voltage (I–U) characteristics are represented by straight lines in semi-logarithmic scale in a wide range, nearly nine order of current up to 0.7 V with near unit ideality factor. In the beginning of the reverse voltage, the current practically was extremely low, by increasing in voltage the current jump in steps approximately for 3–4 order in voltage of 3–4 V, then current increases linear for 3–5 order in semi-logarithmic scale by increasing in voltage up to nearly 7 V.Numerical values of parameters such as the saturation currents, the operating barrier height, ideality factor, dimensionless factor are obtained. The correlations between ideality factor and dimensionless factor were meaningful.The energy diagrams of narrow SD have been drawn in absence and presence of forward and reverse voltage. It is found that electronic processes in narrow SD are well described by energy model of real narrow metal–semiconductor contacts. The additional electric field arising in near contact area of the semiconductor because of creating contact potential difference between contact surface and to it adjoining free surfaces of the metal and semiconductor.     

Schottky barriers on n-GaN grown on SiC

Characteristics of Schottky barriers fabricated on n-type GaN were investigated. The barriers were formed by vacuum thermal evaporation of Cr, Au, and Ni. Current-voltage (I-V) and capacitance-voltage (C-V) characteristics of the barriers were measured in a wide temperature and current density range. Fundamental parameters (barrier height and built-in potential) of the Schottky barriers were determined. The dependence of the barrier ideality factor on doping concentration in GaN was measured. Correlation between the barrier height and metal work function was observed. The electron affinity for GaN was determined using both C-V and I-V characteristics. The current flow mechanism through the barriers is discussed.     

Influence of inhomogeneous contact in electrical properties of 4H–SiC based Schottky diode

Schottky diodes realized on 4H–SiC n-type wafers with an epitaxial layer and a metal-oxide overlap for electric field termination were studied. The oxide was grown by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) and the Schottky barriers were formed by thermal evaporation of titanium or nickel. Diodes, with voltage breakdown as high as 700 V and ideality factor as low as 1.05, were obtained and characterized after packaging in standard commercial package (TO220).The electrical properties such as ideality factor, hight barrier, the series resistance R_s were deduced by current/voltage (I–V) analysis using the least mean square (LMS) method. The temperature effect on break voltage, R_s and saturation current was studied. A model based on two parallel Schottky diodes with two barrier heights is presented for some devices having an inhomogeneous contact. It is shown that the excess current at low voltage can be explained by a lowering of the Schottky barrier in localized regions. We use the two series RC components electrical model in order to study the dynamic behaviour of the Schottky diode in low frequency and to improve the effect of barrier inhomogeneities in electrical properties.     

Electrical characterization of inorganic-on-organic diode based InP and poly(3,4-ethylenedioxithiophene)/poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS)

The electronic properties of metal–organic semiconductor-inorganic semiconductor diode between InP and poly(3,4-ethylenedioxithiophene)/poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) polymeric organic semiconductor film have been investigated via current–voltage and capacitance–voltage methods. The Al/PEDOT:PSS/p-InP contact exhibits a rectification behavior with the barrier height value of 0.98 eV and with the ideality factor value of 2.6 obtained from their forward bias current voltage (I–V) characteristics at the room temperature greater than the conventional Al/p-InP (0.83 eV, n = 1.13). This increase in barrier height and ideality factor can be attributed to PEDOT:PSS film formed at Al/p-InP interface.     

用弹道电子发射显微术研究超薄金属硅化物/硅肖特基接触

采用弹道电子发射显微术 ( BEEM)技术对超薄 Pt Si/Si、Co Si2 /Si肖特基接触特性进行了研究 ,并与电流 -电压 ( I- V)及电容 -电压 ( C- V)测试结果进行了对比 .研究了 Ar离子轰击对超薄Pt Si/n- Si肖特基接触特性的影响 .BEEM、I- V/C- V技术对多种样品的研究结果表明 ,I- V/C- V测试会由于超薄硅化物层串联电阻的影响而使测试结果产生严重误差 ;BEEM测试则不受影响 .随着离子轰击能量增大 ,肖特基势垒高度降低 ,且其不均匀性也越大 .用 BEEM和变温 I- V对超薄 Co Si2 /n- Si肖特基二极管的研究结果表明 ,变温 I- V测试可在一定程度上获得肖特基势垒     

Influence of different metal over-layers on the electrical behaviour of the MIS Schottky diodes

We have employed technology computer-aided design – a Synopsys® tool to carry out a comparative study of the electrical behaviour of the metal–insulator–semiconductor Schottky diodes with different metal contacts (Ag, Au, Pt and Cr), on n-Si(100). We employed physics models to determine the Shockley–Read–Hall (SRH) and Auger recombination rates as a function of electric field profile in the depletion region. An insight was obtained as variation in the electric field at the metal–semiconductor interface due to work function variation affected the current mechanisms and recombination rates. The results were compared with the existing models. On the basis of analysis, merits and demerits of Schottky junctions formed due to these metals are discussed. The ideality factor of Au and Pt was found to be just around 2.0, while it was higher for Cr and Ag. However, the barrier height in the case of Cr was small, thus making it another possible metal layer for the Schottky contact. Similarly, SRH recombination rates were almost negligible for Au and Pt metal layer and became appreciable for Cr and much higher in Ag, making it not a good choice for the Schottky contact.