The Barrier's Heights and Its Inhomogeneities on Diamond Silicon Interfaces
Szymon Łoś1, Kazimierz Fabisiak2, Kazimierz Paprocki3
1Institute of Mathematics and Physics, Bydgoszcz University of Science and Technology, Profesora Sylwestra Kaliskiego 7, 85796 Bydgoszcz, Poland.
Abstract:
In this work, the electrical parameters of the polycrystalline diamonds' p-PCD/n-Si heterojunction were investigated using temperature-dependent current-voltage (I-V) characteristics. In the temperature range of 80-280 K, the ideality factor (n) and energy barrier height (φ) were found to be strongly temperature dependent. The φ increases with temperature rise, while the n value decreases. The observed dependencies are due to imperfections at the interface region of a heterojunction and the non-homogeneous distribution of the potential barrier heights. Values of the φ were calculated from I-V characteristics using the thermionic emission theory (TE). The plot of φ versus 1/2 kT revealed two distinct linear regions with different slopes in temperature regions of 80-170 K and 170-280 K. This indicates the existence of a double Gaussian distribution (DGD) in heterojunctions. Parameters such as mean barrier heights φ¯b and standard deviations σ were obtained from the plots linearization and read out from intercepts and slopes. They take values φ¯b = 1.06 eV, σ = 0.43 eV, respectively. The modified Richardson plot is drawn to show the linear behavior in these two temperature ranges, disclosing different values of the effective Richardson constants (A*).
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