Integrated temperature sensor with diamond Schottky diodes using a thermosensitive parameter

Abstract

Diamond Schottky diodes with high figures of merit have been previously demonstrated. However, self-heating during characterization process has been widely observed and fast and high temperature monitoring is highly desired, moreover temperature management is of high interest for device parallelization. In this article, we investigate the possibility to monolithically integrate a small area Schottky diode which will be used as temperature sensor. The diode voltage drop at a constant forward bias current will be used as a thermosensitive parameter. This voltage drop has a quasi-linear variation over a temperature range (experimentally demonstrated from 300K to 440K in this study due to the maximum operating temperature of the experiments) at constant bias current densities between 0.25A/cm2 and 2.5A/cm2, with a sensor sensitivity of −1.6mV/K. It is also demonstrated that this integrated temperature sensor is affected by the biasing conditions of the main Schottky diode. To perform reliable measurements, the temperature measurement must be done while the main Schottky diode is in OFF-state or the fabrication process must be modified. This integrated temperature measurement allows accurate junction temperature monitoring, offering a diamond Schottky diode operation at its best ON-state performance through an active device temperature management.