Temperature-Dependent Current-Voltage (I-V) and Capacitance-Voltage (C-V) Characteristics of Ni/Cu/n-InP Schottky Barrier Diodes

The current-voltage (I-V) and capacitance-voltage (C-V) characteristics of Ni/Cu/n-InP Schottky barrier diodes are studied over a wide temperature range, from 210 K to 420 K. The I-V characteristics display anomalous thermal behavior. The apparent barrier height decays, and the ideality factor grows at low temperatures, and the series resistances resulting from Cheung's and Norde's procedures are markedly temperature dependent. The nonlinearity of the Richardson plot and the strong temperature dependence of the Schottky-barrier parameters indicate that the interface is spatially inhomogeneous. Plots of the zero-bias barrier height as a function of 1/(2kT) points to a Gaussian distribution of barrier heights with 0.90 eV mean height and 0.014 eV standard deviation. When this distribution is accounted for, a Richardson of 6.5 A/(cm K)(2) results, relatively close to the 9.4/(cm K)(2) predicted by theory. We conclude that, combined with a Gaussian distribution of barrier heights, the thermionic-emission mechanism explains the temperature-dependent I-V and C-V characteristics of the studied Schottky-barrier diodes.