Thickness dependence of internal voltage in metal-insulator-metal structure with dissimilar electrodes

Abstract
A study of the thickness dependence of internal voltage in a metal-insulator-metal structure with barium stearate as the dielectric film has been carried out with aluminum and tin electrodes and the internal voltage has been found to decrease linearly with thickness of the dielectric film. The internal voltage is directly related to the difference of the work function of the two metals when the dielectric film has no net dipole moment. For the case when the insulator has a net dipole moment, the internal voltage is found to increase when aluminum is the bottom and tin the top electrodes. The measured internal voltage is found to be consistent with that derived from the study of tunneling currents.