Cd and Te-based ohmic contact materials to p-Type ZnSe

Abstract

In order to explore a possibility of forming an intermediate semiconductor layer with low Schottky barrier by the conventional deposition and annealing technique, the electrical properties of Cd and Te-based contacts on the nitrogendoped ZnSe substrates have been investigated. Cd in the Cd/W contact reacted with the ZnSe substrate after annealing at temperatures above 250°C and formed epitaxial Ccx}Zn1−xSe layers, leading to reduction of the “turn-on” voltage (VT) from about 11 to 6 V (here, a slash “/” between Cd and W means the deposition sequence). The reduction of the Vn} value by annealing at elevated temperatures was also observed for the Bi-Cd/W and In-Cd/W contacts. The average Cd composition (x) in the Cdn}Zn1−xSe layers was measured to be larger than 0.9, which agreed with the values estimated from the calculated Cd-Zn-Se phase diagrams. The ohmic behavior was strongly influenced by the thickness of the CdxZn1−xSe layer, the density of misfit dislocations formed at the interface between the Cdx Zn1−x Se and the ZnSe, and/or the total area of the Cd Zn. Se layers covering the ZnSe surface. The present result suggests that formation of the large-areal CcxZn1−xSe layers with thin thickness is crucial to achieve further reduction of the VT value by the conventional deposition and annealing technique. Also, the VT reduction was not obtained for the Te/W contact even after annealing at temperatures close to 300°C, which was explained to be due to absence of ternary ZnSe1−xTen intermediate layers.