A novel silicon Schottky diode for NLTL applications

The design and simulation of a novel silicon Schottky diode for nonlinear transmission line (NLTL) applications is discussed in this paper. The Schottky diode was fabricated on a novel silicon-on-silicide-on-insulator (SSOI) substrate for minimized series resistance. Ion implantation technology was used as a low-cost alternative to molecular beam epitaxy to approximate the delta (δ) doping profile, which results in strong nonlinear CV characteristics. The equivalent circuit model of the Schottky diode under reverse bias conditions was extracted from the S-parameter measurement performed on the diode. The measured CV characteristics show strong nonlinearity, the junction capacitance varies from 182 to 47.5 fF as the reverse bias voltage is varied from 0 to -5 V. A parasitic inductance of 40 pH was measured for the silicon Schottky diode, which is much smaller than a comparable sized GaAs Schottky diode. This small inductance is an advantage for the silicon Schottky diode offering improvement in the silicon NLTL performance.