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Influence of thin inversion layers on Schottky diodes
K.K. Sharma
To cite this version:
K.K. Sharma. Influence of thin inversion layers on Schottky diodes. Revue de Physique Appliquée, Société française de physique / EDP, 1986, 21 (1), pp.25-33. �10.1051/rphysap:0198600210102500�.
�jpa-00245407�
Influence of thin inversion layers
onSchottky diodes
K. K. Sharma (*)
Laboratoire de Physique des Solides, CNRS, 1 pl. A. Briand, F-92190 Meudon, France
(Reçu le 28 mai 1985, accepté le 16 septembre 1985)
Résumé. 2014 Une diode Schottky voit sa hauteur de barrière augmenter lorsque le dopage du semiconducteur est inversé en surface. Cet effet est calculé, de façon à mettre en évidence l’influence des principaux paramètres : dopage et épaisseur de la couche d’inversion, configuration des états d’interface, fonction de travail du métal.
L’interprétation des rares résultats expérimentaux publiés permet de conclure que les états d’interface ne sont pas modifiés par la présence de la couche d’inversion.
Abstract 2014 A Schottky diode exhibits a barrier height which increases when the semiconductor doping is super-
ficially inversed. This effect is modellized, so as to show the influence of the main parameters : doping and thickness of the inversion layer, interface state configuration, metal work function. The analysis of a few available experimental
results is consistent with the assumption that the interface states are not modified by the inversion layer.
Classification
Physics Abstracts
73.40N
1. Introduction.
The
properties
of metal-semiconductor(MS) junctions depend
on the detailed electrical and chemical nature of the interface between both materials. While surface sciencetechniques give
bestinsight
into this interface,as reviewed
recently by
Brillson[1],
it is alsohelpful
to use a more
macroscopic approach
and relate thejunction properties
to the properphysical
parameters.Among
the latter, mostimportant
are the interfacial electronic states and the values of work functions of the metal4>m
and the bulk semiconductor4>8.
Thedifference of
4>m
and4>8
may cause a bandbending
tooccur at the semiconductor surface, due to a
charge
transfer which is necessary to
equalize
the Fermi level in both sides whenthey
are put in contact, uponequilibrium
conditions ; however this effect was shown 20 years ago to be unable toexplain
theexperimentally
observed barrier
heights,
which turn out to be littledependent
on metal work function. In order toexplain
this behaviour,
Cowley
and Sze[2], using
a formeridea of Bardeen
[3],
described the interface as adipole layer
and,introducing
the interface states asessentially responsible
for the bandbending (which
remainsparabolic)
could account for the barrierheights quantitatively.
Thecomplete
distribution of interface statesthroughout
the energy gap of the semiconductor (*) Detached from R.K. College Shamli, Univ. of Meerut,India.
is not needed for this purpose ; the model can be built
on the
knowledge
ofEN,
the level up to which the surface states have to be filled to ensurecharge
neu-trality
of the semiconductor surface, and ofDs,
thedensity
of surface states near this level,expressed
in cm- 2eV-’. More recentknowledge
of the interfacestate distribution may somewhat
modify
the model,as
suggested by
Barret andVapaille [4].
If the semiconductor is not
uniformly doped,
itsdoping profile
below the MS interface introduces anon-parabolicity
of the bandbending
and maychange largely
the barrierheight 4>b
and otherproperties
of the diode. This may
happen naturally
due to somemetal-semiconductor reaction
[1]
or bedeliberately produced.
For instance Card[5, 6], using
analloying
process between Al and n-Si, could raise
4>b
from0.66 eV to 0.74 eV. Also Li et al.
[7] implanted phos- phorous
onp-Si
beforebuilding
a Ti-SiSchottky diode,
thusincreasing 4>b
from 0.6 eV to 0.96 eV.Qualitative explanations
of these results weregiven, using
thelikely
trends of the band structure due tothe inversion
layer.
Similar results were found forAsGa-based
Schottky
diodes[8].
We present here a model which aims at :
i)
des-cribing simple Schottky
diodes - and in this case,integrating
toCowley
and Sze’stheory
recent know-ledge
on interface states, and alsoillustrating
the roleof the most
important physical
parameters - andii) covering
the case when acompensating
or evenan inverted
layer
has been introducedby
properArticle published online by EDP Sciences and available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/rphysap:0198600210102500
26
doping
of the semiconductor surface beforedepositing
the metal. In this first step, we are interested
only
inbarrier
heights, though
electrical andphotoelectric properties might
be studied later on, and we choose silicon as the test material to illustrate the model.2.
Summary
of the model forsimple Schottky
diodes.Following Cowley
and Sze[2]
we shall use thefollowing assumptions :
(i)
There exists an intimate contact between metal and semiconductor with aninterfacial layer
of atomicdimensions
(say
5À),
which is transparent to electrons and holes. The interfaciallayer
can withstand thepotential
across it and itspermittivity
8i is that of free space 80.(ii)
Interfacial states exist between the semiconduc-tor and the interfacial
layer;
theirdensity
vs. energy isessentially
characteristic of the semiconductor;their
occupation probability depends
on the metaland semiconductor work functions.
(iii)
There isnegligible
barrierlowering by Schottky image
effectLet the energy band
configuration
of a metal-n type semiconductor system be as shownby figure
1,Pm
is the metal work function and
0,
that of the semi-conductor. The electron
affinity
of the latter is x =0. - V.,
whereVn
is a well-known function of thedoping
and of the conduction band structure[9].
Ob.
is the barrierheight
which is surmountedby
theelectrons
flowing
from the metal to semiconductor side. The neutral level, up to which the interfacestates are filled before the formation of the diode, has
an energy différence
00
with the valence bandedge
andOg
with the Fermi levelEF. W n
is the thickness of thedepleted n-region
and b, the thickness of the interfacialFig. 1. - Schematic representation of a simple Schottky
diode metal/n-Si.
layer.
The abscissa x will be counted from the onset of the bandbending,
inside the semiconductor. Thezero
potential
will be chosen to be that of electrons at levelEc.
We can know the exact energy band
diagram by solving
the Poisson’sequation
in differentregions
andthen
applying
the condition of electronicequilibrium.
In
region
I, the bandedges
exhibit the classical para- bolic behaviour of adepleted region.
Inregion
II, thepotential
fall d is relatedby
Gauss’s law to thecharge
of the
dipole layer.
Two types ofcharges
are presenton the semiconductor side of this
layer :
those trans-ferred from the ions of the
depleted region,
thedensity
of which is :
(q
= electroncharge, Nd
=density
of ionized donors in the bulksemiconductor)
and those due to interfacestates. The
density
of the latter,Q..,
will beexpressed
as :
where
D.
is thedensity
of the interface states per unitarea per unit electronvolt, assumed to be constant
in the energy interval
between EN
andEF.
One mayalso write :
As a counterpart to
Qss
+Qsc,
anequal
andopposite charge QM
isdeveloping
on the metal side of theinterfacial layer :
3gc
is at least one order ofmagnitude
smaller thanQsg, in
most cases : forl/Jbn
= 0.6-0.8 eV,equation (1) gives Wn
near 1 png so thatQsc/q
=1011 cm - 2 for adoping Np
= 1015cm - 3 ;
on the other hand we shallsee that
Ds
is of order 1013 cm2.eV-1and ~g
is 0.1to 0.4 eV, so that
Qgs/q
ishigher
than 1012 cm - 2.We may therefore
neglect Qsc
beforeQss.
Following Cowley
and Sze[2],
theequation
expres-sing
the electronicequilibrium throughout
the struc-ture can be written :
where :
The barrier
height Pbn
behavesdifferently according
to the value of
D. :
- if
D.
= 0,Ob.
=~m -
x, which is the barrierheight
in the frame of thesimple Schottky theory ;
-
if Ds -+
00,q5bn
=Eg - 0 o,
which means that theFermi level is
pinned
with the neutral level ; in thiscase the barrier
height
isindependent
of0.;
- in
reality, D.
lies somewhere between these twoextremes ; if it is furthermore assumed to be a constant for a
given
semiconductor and all metals,Ob.
isfound to be a linear function of the metal work function
4m.
3. Remlts and discussion for
simple Schottky
diodes.We shall illustrate the variations of barrier
height
with the
physical
parameters involved, with thehelp
of
figures
2 to 5.Figure
2 shows, for Au-nSi system, that4>b
isquite independent
of the semiconductordoping.
This isbecause the barrier
height
is the sum of two terms : the built-inpotential Yb;,
which increases with thedoping density Nd,
and the termVn,
which decreasesby
the same amountExperiments
have confirmedthis
finding,
which is coherent with the fact thatQsc « Q.s.
Fig. 2. - Barrier height as a function of doping for Au-nSi system with Ds = 4 x 1013
states/cm2.
eV.Figure
3 shows the influence of surface statedensity
on barrier
height,
for various diodes based on n-solOb
increases withD.
for low values ofD.,
and thisincrement is more
prominent
in the case of low work function metals. However, towardslarge
densitiesof surface states
(~ 1015 cm - 2 . eV -1 )
the barrierheight
becomes fixed andindependent
both onD,
and on metal work function. This is the case where the Fermi level has been
pinned
at the neutral level, sothat the barrier
height
is almostequal
toEc - EN : Ob
=Eg - 00.
Figure
4 showsclearly
that the distance between Fermi level and neutral level decreases when thedensity
of surface states increases. For thehighest
densities of surface states, the Fermi level locks with the neutral level.
Fig. 3. - Barrier height as a function of interface state
density and metal work function (4)0 = 0.33 eV, Np = 1015 cm-3).
Fig. 4. - Energy difference between Fermi level and neutral level as a function of interface state density and metal work
function.
Equation (5)
showed that the barrierheight depends
not
only
on thedensity
of surface statesD. (through K),
but also on
Po
which appearsexplicitly.
How bothD,
and0.
influence4>b. ’S
illustratedby figure
5.However
D.
and00
aredependent
on theproperties
of the interface and our discussion will bear first on their values.
In its first version
[2],
this model wascompared
toexperiments,
and found toexplain approximately
thevalues of
Ob.
for many metals on Si,provided
that thefollowing
values of the parameters were chosen(Fig. 6) :
Figure
6 shows that these values fit well the casesof a series of metals
(Pb,
Al,Ag,
Cu,Au) having
barrierheights,
on n-Si,ranging
from 0.6 eV to 0.8 eV(experi-
mental
points
are from Milnes[10]).
However other28
Fig. 5. - Barrier height as a function of Dg and Po for Ag/n-Si Schottky diodes.
Fig. 6. - Experimental determinations of barrier heights vs.
metal work functions
(Ref. [10]).
The straight lines represent theoretical variations for different values of D,, ~0.metals do not fit
(12).
Our model is able toexplain,
at least
semiquantitatively,
the différent cases seen onfigure
6, as follows.4>0
is a property of the semiconductor which is decidedby
theneutrality
of its surface before eva-porating
the metal over it : it should beessentially
constant for a
given
semiconductor in contact with any metal,though
variationsaccording
tocrystal
orientation or surface bond reconstruction may
happen
to takeplace.
The bestapproximation,
asmentioned above, is to choose this constant
equal
to0.33 eV. On contrary, the number of surface states per unit area,
Ds,
maychange drastically
from metalto metal.
D,
is the meandensity
of states in the interval,of width
4>.,
betweenneutrality
level andequilibrium
Fermi level. How the
density
of interface states variesinside the energy gap results from several recent works
[4,11,12] :
it is admitted thatDg(E)
is maximal nearthe valence band and conduction band, and minimal
in the middle of the gap. Now let us consider the cases
of Al, Cr and Na.
Using
the values ofPm
and4>bn
illustrated
by figure
6 and those of the constants : x = 4.05 eV,q5o
= 0.33 eV, K can be found fromformula
(5),
and thenD.
from formula(6).
On theother hand
4>g
isequal
toEg - qlo - Pbn.
The resultsare :
These results can be
compared
to the known energy variation of the interface statedensity,
asgiven
forinstance
by figure
2 ofBarret-Vapaille’s
paper[4].
This work
applies
to Cr-SiSchottky
diodesprepared by
ultra-vacuumevaporation
of Cr on cleaved Sisurfaces, Le. to very clean
Cr/Si
interfaces : in theregion
from 0.33 to 0.54 above valence band,Dg
is minimal, of order 5 x 1011 cm-2 eV - 1 : this is
exactly
the value that was derived above from ourmodel. No such
quantitative
agreement can be obtained for Al or Na, because in these cases no direct results aboutD.
have been obtained from cleavedsurfaces; however it is clear from the
general shape
of the
D.(E)
curve that, whenOg
decreases from that of Cr to that of Al,Ds
should increase since the Fermilevel gets nearer the « A-band » of reference
[4] (near
the valence
band),
whereas, whenOg
increases fromthat of Cr to that of Na,
Ds
should also increase sincethe Fermi level gets nearer the o C-band » of refe-
rence
[4] (near
the conductionband) :
it isexactly
thetrend found above from our model. This nice semi-
quantitative
fitjustifies assumption (ii) of §
2.One could argue that our value ei = ao
(assumption (i))
isarbitrary.
But if we try a, = 3.9 a. instead, a valuetypical
of siliconoxide,
we will fmdD. ô
to be 3.9 timeslarger.
Since thedensity
ofSi-Si02
interface stateshas been
consistently
found to be smaller than 10 " an eV - 1[11,12],
b should be of order of severaltens
ofÂ.
This is not the case in the structures whichwe are
studying,
in which no oxidelayer
has beendeliberately
grown between the semiconductor and the métal.As for our
assumption (üi),
theneglect
of the barrierlowering
due to theimage
force effect isjustified,
since this effect does not contribute more than 0.02 eV to the energy band
configuration.
We can conclude that numerical values like
(7)
areapproximately
valid for Al and similar metals, andthat
divergencies
from these values. for some other metals arequalitatively
accounted for. This discussionrefers to « extrinsic » surface states
(after
the metalhas been
deposited).
The model thus built forsimple
diodes has now to be extended to
n/p
metal(or p/n
metal)
structures.4. Model for diodes with inversion
layers.
Our
approach
will allow to go further than the pre-ceding
tentative of Van der Ziel[13],
into the case ofSchottky
diodeshaving
an inversionlayer
betweenthe bulk semiconductor and the metal.
Figure
7illustrates the case of a
highly doped
inversionlayer,
of thickness
Wp.
Fig. 7. - Schematic representation of a metal/p/Si/n/Si Schottky diode.
The three initial
assumptions of §
2 will be madeagain, together
with two otherassumptions :
(iv)
The surface states at themetal/p-Si
interfaceare the same as
they
were,in §
2, formetal/n-Si
inter-faces.
(v)
The inversionlayer
isabrupt,
thin andfully
ionized
In
region
I, we still haveparabolic
bands. Inregion
II, the solution of Poisson’sequation, using
proper
boundary
conditions, is found to be :with :
and :
We thus fmd the potential at the end of
region
II,(03A8)x=Wn+Wp.
To know the
potential drop
L1 at the interfaciallayer,
one needs to know the total surfacecharge
at thesemiconductor surface. There are three contributions to this
charge :
(i)
From the ionizedp-region (ii)
From the ionizedn-region (iii)
From the surface states.Let the contribution
by
n and pregions
be denotedby 6sc
and that contributedby
surface statesby Qss.
Then,
and
by
the définition of the neutral level.Applying
Gauss’s law at the interfacegives
A, sothat we now know :
Finally
the electronicequilibrium requires
that thelatter
potential
beequal
toq5. - P8.
Thishelps
tofind out the
potential
distribution at the variouspoints
of the device in thermalequilibrium,
and inparticular
the effective barrierheight
If the
potential (8)
inregion
II is such that,Na Wp
>Nd W 0’
there exists a maximumpotential point
in thep-region. Obviously,
the effective barrierheight
of the device will beequal
to theheight
of thispoint
above the Fermi level Theposition
Xm andheight Ob.
of this maximumpotential point
arefound to be :
5. Results and discussion for
n/p
métal diodes.Following
the aboveanalysis, computerized
calcu-lation has been made to understand the various
properties of metal-p-nSi
devices. However, the modelis
general
and can beapplied
to any such semiconduc-tor device. The results are shown from
figure
8 to 14.Figure
8 shows the effect ofintroducting
a thinsurface
layer
on theSchottky
diodes of different metals.It has been found that the barrier
height
versus metalworkfunction curves, for irixed widths and
doping
densities of the surface
layer,
arestraight
lines. The increment in barrierheight
due to aparticular
surfacelayer
isindependent
of the metal workfunction.Figure
9 shows theeffect
of substratedoping
on thebarrier
height
of asilver-p-n
silicon system. UnlikeSchottky
barriers(Fig. 2),
the barrierheight
in suchdevices is very sensitive to the
doping density
of thebulk semiconductor. It decreases when
Nd
increases.30
Fig. 8. - Effect of introduction of thin surface layers (of
thickness
Wp,
doping NJ on various Schottky diodes.Fig. 9. - Variation of effective barrier height of Ag-p-nSi systems with the doping density of the substrate.
Therefore the less
impure
semiconductors are the better choice to fabricate such devices.Figure
10 shows the variation of the effective barrierheight
with the ionized acceptordensity
inp-region.
Similarly,
the variation of barrierheight
with thethickness of the
p-region
for its variousdoping
concen-trations has been shown in
figures
11 and 12 forAg-p-
nSi and
Al-p-nSi
devices. It has been found that the width and thedoping density
are the main parameters which détermine the barrierheight
in such devices.However, the surface
neutrality
conditions can also affect the barrierheight
formation as shown infigure
13 : the increase in surface state
density
at the interface increases the barrierheight
in such devices.Figure
14shows the energy band
diagram
of apeculiar Ag-p-nSi
device of barrier
height -
0.90 eV based uponthç
Fig. 10. - (a) Variation of effective barrier height of Ag-p-
nSi systems with the density of the ionized acceptors in the p-region for its various widths. (b) Variation of the position
of Fermi level relative to neutral level in Ag-p-nSi devices.
Fig. 11. - (a) Variation of effective barrier height of Ag-p-
nSi systems with the thickness of inversion region for its
different doping densities. (b) Variation of ~bo (see Fig. 7) with the width and doping of the inversion region.
present modèle
together
with that of thecorresponding simple diode,
without thep-region.
In
figure
10, the energy difference between the neutral level and the Fermi level has also beenplotted against
thedoping density
of the inversionlayer
tillthe barrier
height
becomesequal
to the energy gap.Fig. 12. - Variation of effective barrier height of Al-p-nSi systems with the thickness of p-region for its different doping
densities
(theory
applicable to Card’s experiments[5]).
Fig. 13. - The effect of surface state density on the barrier height of diflerent Schottky diodes with inversion layers.
It is seen that towards the
larger
widths of the surfacelayer,
the differencePI
decreases. This parametergives
an estimation of the
stability
of these devices with respect to time oraging.
Theaging
is the main draw- back ofSchottky
barriers, which is due to thechange
in surface states at the interface,
causing
achange
in6ss,
Le. achange
ofp18Ds (see
Eq.(12))
and achange
in barrier
height
Withmetal-p-nSi
devices,PI
issmaller and
changes
less withexposition
to atmo-sphere,
so that these devices should be more stable.The
potential
at the end ofp-region
at the surface has beendepicted by qbb.-
Infigure
11,Pbo
has beenplotted against Wp
for variousdoping
densities of thep-region
till the effective barrierheight Pbn
reaches its maximum,equal
to energy gapEg(Ag-p-nSi systems).
It has been found that
Pbo
has not the same value as thebarrier
height
of thecorresponding Schottky
devicebefore the inclusion of the inversion
layer
in il It maychange
evenby
0.08 eV(from
0.67 eV to 0.75eV)
towards the
high doping
densities of the inversionlayer.
Therefore, the earlier calculations[14,13]
basedupon the
assumption
ofequality
ofOb,,
after fabri-cating
themetal-p-nSi
device, to the barrierheight
of the
corresponding Schottky
diode without inversionlayer,
are not so accurate. However, for lowdopings
Fig. 14. - Calculated energy band diagram of (a) a simple Ag-nSi Schottky diode ; (b) a particular Ag-p-nSi structure.
of the inversion
layer
thisassumption
may be tenable(see Fig.11 b).
To test the
validity
of the above model, it has beenapplied
toAl-p-nSi
devicesprepared by
Card[5] by
thermal
annealing
ofsimple
Al-nSi tunnel structures.In this process an aluminium
doped p-region
iscreated between aluminium and n-Si
by
the diffusion of silicon into aluminium andsubsequent cooling.
He used different temperatures of
annealing
andmeasured the resultant barrier
heights by
I-V andC-V methods. His results are shown in
figure
15along
with the theoretical values calculated
according
to the present model. The values of the thicknessWp
ofrecrystallised p-region
and thecorresponding
averagedoping
densitiesNa
have been estimatedby
the dataavailable in literature
[6, 5]
based upon theassumption of uniformity of p-layer.
It is found that there is agood
agreement between the present calculated values of barrierheights
and those deduced from theexperi-
ments of Card
[5].
It should be noted here that theheight
EA(Fig. 7)
of the maximumpotential point
above the Fermi level has been taken to be the barrier
height
measuredby
1-V characteristics and theintercept
DB at thepotential
axisby
the extendedparabola
OAB has been taken to be the barrierheight
measured
by
C-Vexperiments.
As a second
example
of thevalidity
of the model, ithas been
applied
to the recentexperiments
of Li et al.[7]
32
Fig. 15. - Comparison of the barrier height values deduced
from Card’s experiments [5] and the present work.
on
Ti-n-pSi
devices fabricatedby
low energy ion-implantation
ofphosphorous
ontop-Si
substrates of(100)
orientation. In theirexperiments, they
foundthat for
Nd
between 1016 and 3.1 x 1017 cm - 3 andn-layer
thicknessvarying
upto780 A, Ti-pSi
deviceshowed barrier
heights ranging
from 0.6 eV to 0.96 eV.Our calculation for the
experiments
of Li et al. havebeen
presented
infigure
16together
with theirexperi-
mental results,
showing
agood
fit Thedensity
ofsurface states at the interface in these
experiments
hasbeen estimated to suit the barrier
height
ofTi-pSi
Schottky
diode seen withoutgrowing
the inversionlayer
which, of course, issubject
to thecrystal
orien-tation
[15].
The small
discrepancies
between the results based upon the presenttheory
and theexperiments
may be attributed to the variousassumptions
made in its formulation. For instance theassumption
ofabrupt
p-n or n-p
junctions
is not valid in such devices. Inannealing experiments
thenon-uniformity
of thethickness of the
recrystallized region
makes it further untenable. In ionimplantation experiments
too, thenonuniformity
effect in thedoping profile
is verylarge.
The
inequality :
is the condition of existence of a maximum
potential point
xmlying
in the intervalW n
x.W n
+W p (as
shownby
theexpression (14)). If Na Wp
=Na Wn,
X. =
Wp
+Wn,
whichimplies
that the maximumpotential
isjust
on the interface at the end of the p-region.
IfNa W p Nd W n,
then Xm >W p
+W n,
there is no
potential
maximum in thep-region,
andno increase of the barrier
height.
However theshape
of the band is no more
parabolic,
which can introducean error in the barrier
height
determination fromC(V)
measurement, where bandparabolicity
isusually
assumed
From the above discussion it can be concluded that the value
of space charge
in the invertedregion
shouldbe above a minimum threshold to
keep
thepeak
in thep-region.
Assumption (iv)
of section 4, about theindependence
of surface
properties
of the semiconductor before and aftercreating
the inversionregion
to fabricatemetal/
p-n or
metal/n-p Schottky
diodes is anarbitrary
one.Fig. 16. - Variation of effective barrier height of Ti-n-pSi systems with the thickness of n-region for its various doping
densities