Schottky Barrier Parameters of Pd/Ti Contacts on N-Type InP Revealed from I-V-T And C-V-T Measurements

We report on the current-voltage (I-V) and capacitance-voltage (C-V) characteristics of the Pd/Ti/n-InP Schottky barrier diodes (SBDs) in the temperature range 160-400 K in steps of 40 K. The barrier heights and ideality factors of Schottky contact are found in the range 0.35 eV (I-V), 0.73 eV (C-V) at 160 K and 0.63 eV (I-V), 0.61 eV (C-V) at 400 K, respectively. It is observed that the zero-bias barrier height decreases and ideality factor n increase with a decrease in temperature, this behaviour is attributed to barrier inhomogeneities by assuming Gaussian distribution at the interface. The calculated value of series resistance (Rs) from the forward I-V characteristics is decreased with an increase in temperature. The homogeneous barrier height value of approximately 0.71 eV for the Pd/Ti Schottky diode has been obtained from the linear relationship between the temperature-dependent experimentally effective barrier heights and ideality factors. The zero-bias barrier height ( ) versus 1/2kT plot has been drawn to obtain evidence of a Gaussian distribution of the barrier heights and values of = 0.80 eV and = 114 mV for the mean barrier height and standard deviation have been obtained from the plot, respectively. The modified Richardson ln(I0/T2)- ( ) versus 1000/T plot has a good linearity over the investigated temperature range and gives the mean barrier height ( ) and Richardson constant (A*) values as 0.796 eV and 6.16 Acm-2K-2 respectively. The discrepancy between Schottky barrier heights obtained from I-V and C-V measurements is also interpreted.

Annealing Effects on Electrical Properties and Interfacial Reactions of Ni/Cu Schottky Rectifiers on n-Type InP

We report on the effect of annealing temperature on electrical, interfacial reactions and surface morphological properties of Ni/Cu Schottky contacts on n-type InP. The extracted barrier height of as-deposited Ni/Cu Schottky contact is 0.59 eV (I-V) respectively. The high-quality Schottky contact with barrier height and ideality factor of 0.65 eV (I-V) and 1.15 respectively, can be obtained after annealing at 300℃ for 1 min in a nitrogen atmosphere. However, annealing at 400℃, results the decrease in the barrier height to 0.54 eV (I-V). From the above observations, it is observed that Ni/Cu Schottky contact exhibited excellent electrical properties after annealing at 300℃. Hence, the optimum annealing temperature for the Ni/Cu Schottky contact is 300℃. Furthermore, Cheung’s functions is used to extract the diode parameters including ideality factor, barrier height and series resistance. According to the XRD analysis, the formation of the indium phases at the Ni/Cu/n-InP interface could be the reason for the increase in the barrier height at annealing temperature 300℃. Further, the degradation of the barrier heights after annealing at 400℃ may be due to the formation of phosphide phases at the Ni/Cu/n-InP interface. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) results show that the overall surface morphology of the Ni/Cu Schottky contact is reasonably smooth.