The Barrier's Heights and Its Inhomogeneities on Diamond Silicon Interfaces

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 (phi(b)) were found to be strongly temperature dependent. The phi(b) 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 phi(b) were calculated from I-V characteristics using the thermionic emission theory (TE). The plot of phi(b) 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 (phi(b)) over bar and standard deviations sigma were obtained from the plots linearization and read out from intercepts and slopes. They take values (phi(b)) over bar = 1.06 eV, sigma = 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*).

Automated summary

This study investigates the electrical parameters of the polycrystalline diamonds' p-PCD/n-Si heterojunction by analyzing temperature-dependent current-voltage characteristics. The results show that the ideality factor and energy barrier height of the heterojunction are strongly influenced by temperature. The observed temperature dependencies are attributed to imperfections at the heterojunction interface and non-homogeneous distribution of potential barrier heights.