Study of the correlation between low-frequency noise and the current-voltage characteristic of a GaAs Schottky-barrier diode

Abstract

Correlation between low-frequency (1/f) noise and the current-voltage (I-V) characteristic of a beam-lead GaAs Schottky-barrier diode (SBD) is studied. It is shown that the ideality factor n of the I-V characteristic (and its increase) in the current range 10-4-10-3 A has the maximum correlation (the correlation coefficient kcor>0.9) with low-frequenvy noise measured at the same currents at frequencies 8-10 KHz, i.e., n is most sensitive to the series resistance of an SBD. At the same time, the values of n in the 10-6-10-5 A range usually do not exceed 1.1 and do not show correlation with low-frequency noise. The correlation is explained predominantly by the barrier-height nonuniformity over the Schottky-barrier contact.