Annealing temperature influence on the degree of inhomogeneity of the Schottky barrier in Ti/4H–SiC contacts

Tung＇s model was used to analyze anomalies observed in Ti/Si C Schottky contacts. The degree of the inhomogeneous Schottky barrier after annealing at different temperatures is characterized by the ‘T0anomaly＇ and the difference（△Φ）between the uniformly high barrier height（Φ0B） and the effective barrier height（Φeff B）. Those two parameters of Ti Schottky contacts on 4H–Si C were deduced from I–V measurements in the temperature range of 298 K–503 K. The increase in Schottky barrier（SB） height（ΦB） and decrease in the ideality factor（n） with an increase measurement temperature indicate the presence of an inhomogeneous SB. The degree of inhomogeneity of the Schottky barrier depends on the annealing temperature, and it is at its lowest for 500-°C thermal treatment. The degree of inhomogeneity of the SB could reveal effects of thermal treatments on Schottky contacts in other aspects.

Investigation of current transport parameters of Ti/4H-SiC MPS diode with inhomogeneous barrier

The current transport parameters of 4H-SiC merged PiN Schottky （MPS） diode are investigated in a temperature range of 300-520 K. Evaluation of the experimental current-voltage （I-V） data reveals the decrease in Schottky barrier height Φb but an increase in ideality factor n, with temperature decreasing, which suggests the presence of an inhomogeneous Schottky barrier. The current transport behaviours are analysed in detail using the Tung＇s model and the effective area of the low barrier patches is extracted. It is found that small low barrier patches, making only 4.3% of the total contact, may significantly influence the device electrical characteristics due to the fact that a barrier height of 0.968 eV is much lower than the average barrier height 1.39 eV. This shows that ion implantation in the Schottky contact region of MPS structure may result in a poor Ti/4H-SiC interface quality. In addition, the temperature dependence of the specific on-resistance （Ron-sp）, T^2.14, is determined between 300 K and 520 K, which is similar to that predicted by a reduction in electron mobility.

Al/Ti/4H-SiC Schottky barrier diodes with inhomogeneous barrier heights

This paper investigates the current-voltage （I-V） characteristics of Al/Ti/4H-SiC Schottky barrier diodes （SBDs） in the temperature range of 77 K-500 K, which shows that Al/Ti/4H SiC SBDs have good rectifying behaviour. An abnormal behaviour, in which the zero bias barrier height decreases while the ideality factor increases with decreasing temperature （T）, has been successfully interpreted by using thermionic emission theory with Gaussian distribution of the barrier heights due to the inhomogeneous barrier height at the A1/Ti/4H-SiC interface. The effective Richardson constant A＊ = 154 A/cm2 . K2 is determined by means of a modified Richardson plot In（I0/T2） - （qσ）2/2（κT）2 versus q/kT, which is very close to the theoretical value 146 A/cm2 · K2.

Analysis of the inhomogeneous barrier and phase composition of W/4H-SiC Schottky contacts formed at different annealing temperatures

The electrical characteristics of W/4H-SiC Schottky contacts formed at different annealing temperatures have been measured by using current-voltage-temperatures（I-V -T） and capacitance-voltage-temperatures（C-V -T） techniques in the temperature range of 25℃-175℃. The testing temperature dependence of the barrier height（BH） and ideality factor（n） indicates the presence of inhomogeneous barrier. Tung＇s model has been applied to evaluate the degree of inhomogeneity, and it is found that the 400℃ annealed sample has the lowest T0 of 44.6 K among all the Schottky contacts. The barrier height obtained from C-V -T measurement is independent of the testing temperature, which suggests a uniform BH.The x-ray diffraction（XRD） analysis shows that there are two kinds of space groups of W when it is deposited or annealed at lower temperature（≤500℃）. The phase of W2C appears in the sample annealed at 600℃, which results in the low BH and the high T0. The 500℃ annealed sample has the highest BH at all testing temperatures, indicating an optimal annealing temperature for the W/4H-SiC Schottky rectifier for high-temperature application.

Thermal activation of current in an inhomogeneous Schottky diode with a Gaussian distribution of barrier height

This paper investigates the thermal activation behaviour of current in an inhomogeneous Schottky diode with a Gaussian distribution of barrier height by numerical simulation. The analytical Gaussian distribution model predicted that the I-VT curves may intersect with the possibility of the negative thermal activation of current, but may be contradictory to the thermionic emission mechanism in a Schottky diode. It shows that the cause of the unphysical phenomenon is related to the incorrect calculation of current across very low barriers. It proposes that junction voltage Vj, excluding the voltage drop across series resistance from the external bias, is a crucial parameter for correct calculation of the current across very low barriers. For correctly employing the thermionic emission model, Vj needs to be smaller than the barrier height Ф. With proper scheme of series resistance connection where the condition of Vj 〉 Ф is guaranteed, I-V T curves of an inhomogeneous Schottky diode with a Gaussian distribution of barrier height have been simulated, which demonstrate normal thermal activation. Although the calculated results exclude the intersecting possibility of I-V T curves with an assumption of temperature-independent series resistance, it shows that the intersecting is possible when the series resistance has a positive temperature coefficient. Finally, the comparison of our numerical and analytical results indicates that the analytical Gaussian distribution model is valid and accurate in analysing I-V-T curves only for small barrier height inhomogeneity.

Influence of Al2O3 barrier on the interfacial electronic structure of Au/Ti/n-GaAs structures

The Au/Ti/n-GaAs structures with and without Al2O3 interfacial layer have been fabricated.The Al2O3interfacial layer has been formed on the GaAs substrate by atomic layer deposition.The effects of the interfacial layer on the current-voltage（I-V） and capacitance-voltage（C-V） characteristics of the devices have been investigated in the temperature range of 60-300 K.It has been seen that the carrier concentration from C-V characteristics for the MIS（metal/insulating layer/semiconductor） diode with Al2O3 interfacial layer has a higher value than that for the reference diode without the Al2O3 interfacial layer（MS）.Such a difference in the doping concentration has been attributed not to doping variation in the semiconductor bulk but to the presence of the Al2O3 interfacial layer because both diodes have been made on the pieces cut from the same n-type GaAs wafer.The temperaturedependent I-V characteristics of the MIS diode do not obey the thermionic emission current theory because of the presence of the Al2O3 layer.An electron tunneling factor,aδ（x）^（1/2）,value of 20.64 has been found from the I-V-T data of the MIS diode.An average value of 0.627 eV for the mean tunneling barrier height,x,presented by the Al2O3 layer has been obtained.