Current-voltage characteristics of low energy proton and alpha particle irradiated Au and Schottky barrier diodes

Abstract

Experimental results on the considerable changes in the current-voltage ( I–V) characteristics of proton and alpha particle (80 keV) irradiated and Schottky barrier diodes (SBDs) with different fluences are presented. The samples were irradiated at 300 K, after fabricating Au and Ag Schottky barrier diodes on the undoped liquid encapsulated Czochralski (LEC) grown n-GaAs (100) (3 × 10 15cm −3). The parameter susceptible to this irradiation is the reverse leakage current of the SBDs. I–V characteristics were measured at different temperatures between 300 and 350 K. A correlation between change in reverse leakage current and incident particle fluence has been observed. The ideality factor and the series resistance of the diode increases with the increase of particle fluence. This may be due to the irradiation-induced defects which reduce the carrier lifetime and/or enhance the interface insulation region.