Temperature dependent current-voltage characteristics of Au/n-Si Schottky barrier diodes and the effect of transition metal oxides as an interface layer

Abstract Temperature dependent current–voltage ( I‒V ) characteristics of Au/ n -type silicon ( n -Si) Schottky barrier diodes have been investigated. Three transition metal oxides (TMO) are used as an interface layer between gold and silicon. The basic Schottky diode parameters such as ideality factor ( n ), barrier height ( ϕ b 0 ) and series resistance ( R s ) are calculated and successfully explained by the thermionic emission (TE) theory. It has been found that ideality factor decreased and barrier height increased with increased of temperature. The conventional Richardson plot of ln (I 0 /T 2 ) vs. 1000/T is determined the activation energy ( E a ) and Richardson constant ( A * ). Whereas value of ‘ A * ’ is much smaller than the known theoretical value of n -type Si. The temperature dependent I–V characteristics obtained the mean value of barrier height ( ϕ b 0 ¯ ) and standard deviation ( σ s ) from the linear plot of ϕ a p vs. 1000/T . From the modified Richardson plot of ln (I 0 /T 2 ) ˗ (qσ) 2 /2(kT) 2 vs. 1000/T gives Richardson constant and homogeneous barrier height of Schottky diodes. Main observation in this present work is the barrier height and ideality factor shows a considerable change but the series resistance value exhibits negligible change due to TMO as an interface layer.