Dependence of characteristic diode parameters in Ni/n-GaAs contacts on thermal annealing and sample temperature

Abstract

We have prepared the sputtered Ni/n-GaAs Schottky diodes which consist of as-deposited, and diodes annealed at 200 and 400°C for 2 min. The effect of thermal annealing on the temperature-dependent currentvoltage (IV) characteristics of the diodes has been experimentally investigated. Their IV characteristics have been measured in the temperature range of 60320 K with steps of 20 K. It has been seen that the barrier height (BH) slightly increased from 0.84 (as-deposited sample) to 0.88 eV at 300 K when the contact has been annealed at 400°C. The SBH increased whereas the ideality factor decreased with increasing annealing temperature for each sample temperature. The IV measurements showed a dependence of ideality factor n and BH on the measuring temperature that cannot be explained by the classical thermionic emission theory. The experimental data are consistent with the presence of an inhomogeneity of the SBHs. Therefore, the temperature dependent IV characteristics of the diodes have been discussed in terms of the multi-Gaussian distribution model. The experimental data good have agree with the fitting curves over whole measurement temperature range indicating that the SBH inhomogeneity of our as-deposited and annealed Ni/n-GaAs SBDs can be well-described by a double-Gaussian distribution. The slope of the nT versus T plot for the samples has approached to unity with increasing annealing temperature and becomes parallel to that of the ideal Schottky contact behavior for the 400°C annealed diode. Thus, it has been concluded that the thermal annealing process translates the metal-semiconductor contacts into thermally stable Schottky contacts. © 2009 World Scientific Publishing Company.