On the enhancement of effective barrier height in [formula omitted] Schottky barrier diodes

Abstract

Changes in the Current-Voltage ( I- V) and Current-Voltage-Temperature ( I- V- T) characteristics of Schottky Barrier Diodes (SBDs) on silicon doped n-GaAs ( Titanium n- GaAs ) after irradiation using protons at 100 keV with various doses (5 × 10 13 to 1 × 10 15 cm −2) are presented and analysed. Irradiated SBDs reverse leakage current is more compared to the un-irradiated SBDs. Heavily irradiated (1 × 10 15 cm −2) SBDs almost behaves like an Ohmic contact at 360 K. The irradiated SBDs were annealed at two different temperatures (200 and 350°C for 15 min.) under nitrogen atmosphere and characterised using I- V and I- V- T measurements. Rectifying behaviour of the irradiated SBDs improves as the annealing temperature increases. Enhancement of the effective barrier height ( Φ e) and improvement in the ideality factor ( n) has been observed in annealed (350°C for 15 min) proton irradiated Ti n- GaAs SBDs. This may be either due to hydrogen passivation of GaAs surface and/or removal of hydrogen related irradiation induced defects in SBDs. On the unirradiated and annealed (upto 350°C) there is no significant change in the characteristics as compared to the CONTROL SBDs.