BARRIER HEIGHT ENHANCED GaN SCHOTTKY DIODES USING A THIN AlN SURFACE LAYER

Abstract

Gallium nitride (GaN) is a highly promising wide band gap semiconductor with applications in high power electronic and optoelectronic devices. Thin films of GaN are most commonly grown in the hexagonal wurtzite structure on sapphire substrates. Growth of GaN onto silicon substrates offers a very attractive opportunity to incorporate GaN devices onto silicon-based integrated circuits. Although direct epitaxial growth of GaN films on Si substrates is a difficult task (mainly due to the 17% lattice mismatch present), substantial progress in the crystal quality can be achieved using a buffer layer. A full characterization of the quality of the material needs to be assessed by a combination of different techniques. In this work, a thin AlN cap layer of 50 nm was incorporated in GaN Schottky diode to enhance the effective Schottky barrier height and reduces the dark current. A barrier height of 0.52 eV for normal GaN Schottky diode was increased to the effective barrier height of 0.63 eV. The resulting Schottky diodes show a dark current of as low as 6.3×10-5 A at 5 V bias, which is about two orders of magnitude lower than that of normal GaN (5.2×10-3 A at 5 V bias) Schottky diode.