Nb/GaAs and NbN/GaAs Schottky barriers

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Niobium and niobium nitride films have been deposited on n-GaAs substrates using dc magnetron sputtering to form Nb/GaAs and NbN/GaAs Schottky diodes. Current-voltage(I-V) measurements were made on the diodes and the metal/GaAs interfaces were studied by Rutherford backscattering spectrometry. For the Nb/GaAs Schottky diodes, without rapid thermal annealing and after annealing for 10 s at temperatures up to 600 °C, the ideality factor and the Schottky barrier height as measured by the current-voltage technique vary slightly from 1.01 to 1.03 and from 0.75 to 0.78 V, respectively. For annealing above 750 °C, evidence of interdiffusion between Nb and GaAs is observed. In contrast to the Nb/GaAs diodes, the NbN/GaAs Schottky diodes have poor characteristics without high-temperature annealing; however, after annealing at 800 °C, the diodes show excellent forward I-V characteristics with an ideality factor of 1.06 and a barrier height of 0.73 V. No trace of interdiffusion between NbN and GaAs is found after annealing up to 800 °C.

This publication has 4 references indexed in Scilit: