A self-consistent characterization methodology for Schottky-barrier diodes and ohmic contacts

Based on the simple interfacial-layer theory, the extraction methods for the interface parameters of the metal-semiconductor contact have been developed and applied to characterize both the Schottky-barrier diodes and the ohmic contacts in a self-consistent manner. It has been shown that the physical parameters at the metal-semiconductor interface can be extracted from the I-V characteristics of the Schottky-barrier diodes and the degradation of the thermal-equilibrium barrier height due to the thermal cycle can be directly modeled in terms of the extracted interface parameters. Besides, using the extracted parameters, the specified surface-treatment process can be evaluated by the extracted thermal-equilibrium barrier height, and thus the strongly process-dependent specific contact resistivity ρ_c of the ohmic contacts can be theoretically calculated by a modified tunneling model considering the impurity band. Furthermore, by comparing the simulated results and the measured ρ _c data deduced from the Al and Ti contacts on both doping types of the Si-substrate, satisfactory agreements have been obtained