Electrical properties and microstructural characterization of Ni/Ta contacts to n-type 6H–SiC

A Ni/Ta bilayer is deposited on n-type 6H–Si C and then annealed at different temperatures to form an ohmic contact. The electrical properties are characterized by I–V curve measurement and the specific contact resistance is extracted by the transmission line method. The phase formation and microstructure of the Ni/Ta bilayer are studied after thermal annealing. The crystalline and microstructure properties are analyzed by using glance incident x-ray diffraction(GIXRD),Raman spectroscopy, and transmission electron microscopy. It is found that the transformation from the Schottky to the Ohmic occurs at 1050?C and the GIXRD results show a distinct phase change from Ta2 C to Ta C at this temperature. A specific contact resistance of 6.5×10-5?·cm2is obtained for sample Ni(80 nm)/Ta(20 nm)/6H–Si C after being annealed at 1050?C. The formation of the Ta C phase is regarded as the main reason for the excellent Ohmic properties of the Ni/Ta contacts to 6H–Si C. Raman and TEM data reveal that the graphite carbon is drastically consumed by the Ta element, which can improve the contact thermal stability. A schematic diagram is proposed to illustrate the microstructural changes of Ni/Ta/6H–Si C when annealed at different temperatures.     

Low-resistance Ohmic contact on polarization-doped AlGaN/GaN heterojunction

High electronic density is achieved by polarization doping without an impurity dopant in graded AlGaN films. Low specific contact resistance is studied on the polarization-doped AlGaN/GaN heterojunctions by using the transmission line method(TLM). The sheet density of polarization-doped AlGaN/GaN heterojunction is 6×1014cm-2at room temperature.The linearly graded material structure is demonstrated by X-ray diffraction. The carrier concentration and mobility are characterized by a temperature-dependent Hall measurement. Multiple-layer metal(Ti/Al/Ti/Au) is deposited and annealed at 650°C to realize the Ohmic contacts on the graded AlGaN/GaN heterojunctions.     

Structural characterization of V/Al/V/Au Ohmic contacts to n-type Al0.4Ga0.6N

This paper investigates the temperature dependence of the specific resistance in annealed V/Al/V/Au (15 nm/85 nm/20 nm/95 nm) contacts on n-Al0.4Ga0.6 N. Contacts annealed at 700C and higher temperatures show Ohmic behaviour. Annealing at 800 C produces the lowest contact resistance. Samples annealed at 800C have been analysed by using cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy and an energy dispersive x-ray spectrum. Limited reaction depths are observed between V-based contacts and n-AlGaN. The VN grains are found to form in the contact layer of the annealed samples,which can be considered as the key to the successful formation of Ohmic contact. The contact layer adjacent to AlGaN material consists of V-Al-Au-N,AlN and AlAu alloys.     

A Novel Ni/Ag/Pt Ohmic Contact to P-Type GaN for Flip-Chip Light-Emitting Diodes

We present a high-quality Ni/Ag/Pt Ohmic contact to p-type GaN. After the sample is annealed at 500℃ in 02 ambient for 3min, a specific contact resistance as low as 2.6 × 10^-5 Ωcm^2 and an optical reflectivity of 82% at 460 nm are obtained. The Auger electron spectroscopy analysis shows that the Pt layer can improve the surface morphology and thermal reliability of the annealed Ag-based electrode, Ag plays a key role in achieving good ohmic contact due to the outdiffusion of Ga into Ag forming Ga vacancies which increase the hole concentration, while the surface contamination of p-type GaN is reduced by Ni.     

Effect of Au/Ni/4H–SiC Schottky junction thermal stability on performance of alpha particle detection

Au/Ni/n-type 4H–SiC Schottky alpha particle detectors are fabricated and annealed at temperatures between 400℃ and 700℃ to investigate the effects of thermal stability of the Schottky contact on the structural and electrical properties of the detectors. At the annealing temperature of 500?C, the two nickel silicides(i.e., Ni_(31)Si_(12) and Ni_2Si) are formed at the interface and result in the formation of an inhomogeneous Schottky barrier. By increasing the annealing temperature,the Ni_(31)Si_(12) transforms into the more stable Ni_2Si. The structural evolution of the Schottky contact directly affects the electrical properties and alpha particle energy resolutions of the detectors. A better energy resolution of 2.60% is obtained for 5.48-MeV alpha particles with the detector after being annealed at 600℃. As a result, the Au/Ni/n-type 4 H–SiC Schottky detector shows a good performance after thermal treatment at temperatures up to 700℃.     

Effects of annealing temperature on the electrical property and microstructure of aluminum contact on n-type 3C–SiC

The 3C-SiC thin films used herein are grown on Si substrates by chemical vapor deposition. A1 contacts with differ- ent thickness values are deposited on the 3C-SiC/Si （100） structure by the magnetron sputtering method and are annealed at different temperatures. We focus on the effects of the annealing temperature on the ohmic contact properties and mi- crostructure of A1/3C-SiC structure. The electrical properties of A1 contacts to n-type 3C-SiC are characterized by the transmission line method. The crystal structures and chemical phases of A1 contacts are examined by X-ray diffraction, Raman spectra, and transmission electron microscopy, respectively. It is found that the A1 contacts exhibit ohmic contact behaviors when the annealing temperature is below 550 ℃, and they become Schottky contacts when the annealing tem- perature is above 650 ℃. A minimum specific contact resistance of 1.8 × 10-4 Ω cm2 is obtained when the A1 contact is annealed at 250 ℃.     

Low-resistance Ohmic contact on polarization-doped AIGaN/GaN heterojunction

High electronic density is achieved by polarization doping without an impurity dopant in graded AIGaN films. Low specific contact resistance is studied on the polarization-doped A1GaN/GaN heterojunctions by using the transmission line method （TLM）. The sheet density of polarization-doped A1GaN/GaN heterojunction is 6 × 10 14 cm-2 at room temperature. The linearly graded material structure is demonstrated by X-ray diffraction. The cartier concentration and mobility are characterized by a temperature-dependent Hall measurement. Multiple-layer metal （Ti/A1/Ti/Au） is deposited and annealed at 650 ℃ to realize the Ohmic contacts on the graded A1GaN/GaN heterojunctions.     

Contact resistance asymmetry of amorphous indium–gallium–zinc–oxide thin-film transistors by scanning Kelvin probe microscopy

In this work, a method based on scanning Kelvin probe microscopy is proposed to separately extract source/drain(S/D) series resistance in operating amorphous indium–gallium–zinc–oxide(a-IGZO) thin-film transistors. The asymmetry behavior of S/D contact resistance is deduced and the underlying physics is discussed. The present results suggest that the asymmetry of S/D contact resistance is caused by the difference in bias conditions of the Schottky-like junction at the contact interface induced by the parasitic reaction between contact metal and a-IGZO. The overall contact resistance should be determined by both the bulk channel resistance of the contact region and the interface properties of the metalsemiconductor junction.     

Effects of Ag on Electrical Properties of Ag/Ni/p-GaN Ohmic Contact

Properties of the Ag/Ni/p-GaN structure at different temperatures are studied by Auger electron spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy and high resolution x-ray diffraction. The effect of Ag in ohmic contact on the crystalline quality is investigated and the optimized value of annealing temperature is reported. The lowest specific contact resistance of 2.5 × 10^-4 Ωcm^2 is obtained at annealing temperature of 550^o C.     

Annealing effects on the microwave permittivity and permeability properties of Fe79Si16B5 microwires and their micowave absorption performances

This paper reports that amorphous magnetic microwires(Fe79Si16B5) have been fabricated by a melt-extraction technique and have been annealed at 600°C and 750°C respectively.Differential scanning calorimeter measurements show that nanocrystalline magnetic phase(α-Fe) has been formed in the amorphous matrix when it was annealed at 600°C.Hard magnetic phase(Fe2B) was formed in the microwires annealed at 750°C,which increases the magnetic coercivity.Microwave permittivity and permeability are found to be dependent on the microstructures.The permittivity fitting results show that multi Lorentzian dispersion processes exist.For microwires annealed at 750°C,their resonance peaks due to the domain wall movements and natural resonance are found higher than those of microwires annealed at 600°C.The microwave absorption performance of microwires annealed at 600°C is found better than microwires annealed at 750°C.     

Substrate-induced stress in silicon nanocrystal/SiO₂ multilayer structures

A Raman frequency upshift in the nc-Si phonon mode is observed at room temperature, which is attributed to a strong compressive stress in the Si nanocrystals. The 10-period amorphous-Si(3 nm)/amorphous-SiO2 (3 nm) layers are deposited by high-vacuum radio-frequency magnetron sputtering on quartz and sapphire substrates at different temperatures. The samples are then annealed in N2 atmosphere at 1100°C for 1 h for Si crystallization. It is demonstrated that the presence of a supporting substrate at the high growth temperature can induce different types of stresses in the Si nanocrystal layers. The strain is attributed to the difference in the thermal expansion coefficient between the substrate and the Si/SiO2 SL film. Such a substrate-induced stress indicates a new method for tuning the optical and electronic properties of Si nanocrystals for strained engineering.     

Annealing temperature influence on the degree of inhomogeneity of the Schottky barrier in Ti/4H–SiC contacts

Tung＇s model was used to analyze anomalies observed in Ti/Si C Schottky contacts. The degree of the inhomogeneous Schottky barrier after annealing at different temperatures is characterized by the ‘T0anomaly＇ and the difference（△Φ）between the uniformly high barrier height（Φ0B） and the effective barrier height（Φeff B）. Those two parameters of Ti Schottky contacts on 4H–Si C were deduced from I–V measurements in the temperature range of 298 K–503 K. The increase in Schottky barrier（SB） height（ΦB） and decrease in the ideality factor（n） with an increase measurement temperature indicate the presence of an inhomogeneous SB. The degree of inhomogeneity of the Schottky barrier depends on the annealing temperature, and it is at its lowest for 500-°C thermal treatment. The degree of inhomogeneity of the SB could reveal effects of thermal treatments on Schottky contacts in other aspects.     

Application of an Al-doped zinc oxide subcontact layer on vanadium-compensated 6H–SiC photoconductive switches

Al-doped Zn O thin film(AZO) is used as a subcontact layer in 6H–Si C photoconductive semiconductor switches(PCSSs) to reduce the on-state resistance and optimize the device structure. Our photoconductive test shows that the onstate resistance of lateral PCSS with an n+-AZO subcontact layer is 14.7% lower than that of PCSS without an n+-AZO subcontact layer. This occurs because a heavy-doped AZO thin film can improve Ohmic contact properties, reduce contact resistance, and alleviate Joule heating. Combined with the high transparance characteristic at 532 nm of AZO film, vertical structural PCSS devices are designed and their structural superiority is discussed. This paper provides a feasible route for fabricating high performance Si C PCSS by using conductive and transparent Zn O-based materials.     

Gap States of ZnO Thin Films by New Methods:Optical Spectroscopy,Optical Conductivity and Optical Dispersion Energy

The optical reflectance and transmittance spectra in the wavelength range of 300–2500 nm are used to compute the absorption coefficient of zinc oxide films annealed at different post-annealing temperatures 400, 500 and 600°C.The values of the cross point between the curves of the real and imaginary parts of the optical conductivity ɑ_1 and ɑ_1 with energy axis of films exhibit values that correspond to optical gaps and are about 3.25–3.3 eV. The maxima of peaks in plots dR/dλ and dT/dλ versus wavelength of films exhibit optical gaps at about 3.12–3.25 eV.The values of the fundamental indirect band gap obtained from the Tauc model are at about 3.14–3.2 eV. It can be seen that films annealed at 600°C have the minimum indirect optical band gap at about 3.15 eV. The films annealed at 600°C have Urbach's energy minimum of 1.38 eV and hence have minimum disorder. The dispersion energy d of films annealed at 500°C has the minimum value of 43 eV.     

Reconstruction of Intrinsic Thermal Parameters of Methane Hydrate and Thermal Contact Resistance by Freestanding 3ω Method

It is essential to obtain thermophysical properties of methane hydrate precisely with a freestanding probe for modeling and predicting thermal transport in gas hydrates. A method with a freestanding 3ω probe is presented to reconstruct the intrinsic thermal conductivity, thermal diffusivity, and thermal contact resistance of methane hydrate. Isolated from the thermal contact resistance, the intrinsic thermal conductivity of methane hydrate decreases between 250 K and 280 K and is 41% larger than the effective value at 253 K. More importantly, when the thermal contact resistance is isolated, the temperature dependence of intrinsic thermal conductivity shows a converse trend with the generally accepted glass-like feature at high temperature. Otherwise, thermal contact resistances measured in the experiment between the freestanding 3ω probe and the methane hydrate sample are extraordinary large. The freestanding 3ω method in this work is expected to measure the thermal property of methane hydrate more accurately.     

Low specific contact resistivity to graphene achieved by AuGe/Ni/Au and annealing process

Low metal-graphene contact resistance is important in making high-performance graphene devices.In this work,we demonstrate a lower specific contact resistivity of Au_(0.88)Ge_(0.12)/Ni/Au-graphene contact compared with Ti/Au and Ti/Pt/Au contacts.The rapid thermal annealing process was optimized to improve AuGe/Ni/Au contact resistance.Results reveal that both pre- and post-annealing processes are effective for reducing the contact resistance.The specific contact resistivity decreases from 2.5 × 10~(-4) to 7.8 × 10~(-5) Ω·cm~2 by pre-annealing at 300 ℃ for one hour,and continues to decrease to9.5 × 10~(-7) H·cm~2 after post-annealing at 490 ℃ for 60 seconds.These approaches provide reliable means of lowering contact resistance.     

Effects of annealing rate and morphology of sol–gel derived ZnO on the performance of inverted polymer solar cells

The effects of annealing rate and morphology of sol–gel derived zinc oxide(ZnO)thin films on the performance of inverted polymer solar cells(IPSCs)are investigated.ZnO films with different morphologies are prepared at different annealing rates and used as the electron transport layers in IPSCs.The undulating morphologies of ZnO films fabricated at annealing rates of 10 C/min and 3 C/min each possess a rougher surface than that of the ZnO film fabricated at a fast annealing rate of 50 C/min.The ZnO films are characterized by atomic force microscopy(AFM),optical transmittance measurements,and simulation.The results indicate that the ZnO film formed at 3 C/min possesses a good-quality contact area with the active layer.Combined with a moderate light-scattering,the resulting device shows a 16%improvement in power conversion efficiency compared with that of the rapidly annealed ZnO film device.     

Improvement of the light output and contact resistance of InGaN-based light-emitting diodes based on tantalum-doped indium tin oxide as p-type electrodes

This paper reports that highly transparent and low resistance tantalum-doped indium tin oxide (Ta-doped ITO) films contacted to p-type GaN have been prepared by the electron-beam evaporation technique. The Ta-doped ITO contacts become Ohmic with a specific contact resistance of $\sim 5.65\times 10^{ - 5}$~$\Omega \cdot$cm$^{2}$ and show the transmittance of $\sim $98% at a wavelength of 440~nm when annealed at 500~\du. Blue light emitting diodes (LEDs) fabricated with Ta-doped ITO p-type Ohmic contact layers give a forward-bias voltage of 3.21~V at an injection current of 20~mA. It further shows that the output power of LEDs with Ta-doped ITO contacts is enhanced 62% at 20~mA in comparison with that of LEDs with conventional Ni/Au contacts.     

Formation of the intermediate semiconductor larger for the Ohmic contact to silicon carbide using Germanium implantation

By formation of an intermediate semiconductor layer (ISL) with a narrow band gap at the metallic contact/SiC interface, this paper realises a new method to fabricate the low-resistance Ohmic contacts for SiC. An array of transfer length method (TLM) test patterns is formed on N-wells created by P⁺ ion implantation into Si-faced p-type 4H-SiC epilayer. The ISL of nickel-metal Ohmic contacts to n-type 4H-SiC could be formed by using Germanium ion implantation into SiC. The specific contact resistance ρ_c as low as 4.23× 10^-5~Ωega \cdotcm² is achieved after annealing in N₂ at 800~°C for 3~min, which is much lower than that (>900~°C) in the typical SiC metallisation process. The sheet resistance R_sh of the implanted layers is 1.5~kΩega /\Box. The technique for converting photoresist into nanocrystalline graphite is used to protect the SiC surface in the annealing after Ge⁺ ion implantations.     

Effects of high temperature rapid thermal annealing on Ge films grown on Si（001） substrate

Tensile strain,crystal quality,and surface morphology of 500 nm thick Ge films were improved after rapid thermal annealing at 900 C for a short period(20 s).The films were grown on Si(001)substrates by ultra-high vacuum chemical vapor deposition.These improvements are attributed to relaxation and defect annihilation in the Ge films.However,after prolonged(20 s)rapid thermal annealing,tensile strain and crystal quality degenerated.This phenomenon results from intensive Si–Ge mixing at high temperature.