Electrical properties of 3 MeV proton irradiated silicon Schottky diodes

Abstract

This work presents the effects of proton irradiations on the electrical properties of n-silicon-based Schottky diodes. A change in electrical properties of the diodes due to 3 MeV proton irradiation to the fluence of 1017 ion cm−2 was investigated by current-voltage (I-V) and capacitance-voltage (C-V) techniques. A drastic decrease in forward current by a factor of 103 indicates a reduction of free injected effective carrier density in the space charge region. This reduction in the density is observed by a decrease in rectification ratio after proton irradiation. The results in general indicate that proton induced defects are responsible for the recombination/compensation of charge carriers resulting in an increase in the resistivity of the material. An increase in the resistivity is confirmed by high series resistance and low doping density evaluated on the irradiated diode. A change in dominated diode conduction mechanism due to irradiation presented here is of technological importance. Furthermore, the results presented here would, certainly, contribute to an ongoing study on the induced damage by radiation in silicon.