Specific contact resistance of the Ni/AuGe/nGaP system

This work studies the specific contact resistance for Ni/Au-Ge/nGaP system at the rectifying regime, i.e. for which the heat-treatment temperature is below 400°C and the I–V characteristics exhibit a rectifying behavior. The specific contact resistance is first computed by using the generalized majority carrier transport theory derived by Chang and Sze 1]. The computed theoretical results are then used to interpret the experimental data which are obtained by measuring the specific contact resistance, at zero bias, as a function of the temperature for as-deposited and heat-treated Ni/Au-Ge/nGaP Schottky diodes. Au/nGaP Schottky diodes are also fabricated to verify the theoretical results. It is found that the barrier height for the Ni/Au-Ge/nGaP system rises from the as-deposited value, 1.10±0.04 eV, to the value of the Ni/nGaP system, 1.27?0.02 eV, as the contact is heat-treated at various temperatures up to 360°C, the eutectic point of the Au-Ge system, and drops rapidly as the contact is heat-treated above 360°C. The barrier height rise is believed to be caused by the Ni in-diffusion toward the Au-Ge/nGaP interface during the heat-treatment. The smaller temperature dependence of the specific contact resistance for Schottky diode samples heat-treated above 360°C indicates that after heat-treatment above this temperature, an n⁺ layer is formed on the GaP surface. The theoretically computed results are used to fit the experimentally measured data to obtain the effective n⁺ doping concentrations and barrier heights.