Transient behavior in Pt/Nb-doped SrTiO3 Schottky junctions

We investigated the transient behavior of Pt/Nb-doped SrTiO3 Schottky junctions that exhibit rectifying and hysteric I-V characteristics. We found that regardless of the junction resistance state, the junction under the bias shows the relaxation behavior over 10(4)s while the behavior is strongly dependent on the junction resistance state. Detailed investigation of the time dependence of the current and the capacitance of the junctions indicates that the junctions have the inhomogeneous Schottky barrier heights and depletion layer widths while the mean junction profile remains unchanged regardless of the junction resistance state. Given the experimental results, we attribute the observed transient behavior to time-dependent changes in the population of electrons trapped in the local conduction regions under the bias, which play an important role in determining the resistance state of Pt/Nb-doped SrTiO3 junction. (C) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.