Current transport in Pd2Si/n-Si(100) Schottky barrier diodes at low temperatures

The forward current-voltage (I-V) characteristics of Pd2Si/n-Si(100) Schottky barrier diodes are shown to follow the Thermionic Emission-Diffusion (TED) mechanism in the temperature range of 52-295 K. The evaluation of the experimental I-V data reveals a decrease of the zero-bias barrier height (phi(b0)) and an increase of the ideality factor (eta) with decreasing temperature. Further, the changes in phi(b0) and eta become quite significant below 148 K. It is demonstrated that the findings cannot be explained on the basis of tunneling, generation-recombination and/or image force lowering. Also, the concepts of flat band barrier height and ''T-0-effect'' fail to account for the temperature dependence of the barrier parameters. The ln(I-s/T-2) vs 1/T plot exhibits nonlinearity below 185 K with the linear portion corresponding to an activation energy of 0.64 eV, a value smaller than the zero-bias barrier height energy (0.735 eV) of Pd2Si/n-Si Schottky diodes. Similarly, the value of the effective Richardson constant A** turns out to be 1.17 x 10(4) A m(-2) K-2 against the theoretical value of 1.12 x 10(6) A m(-2) K-2. Finally, it is demonstrated that the observed trends result due to barrier height inhomogeneities prevailing at the interface which, in turn, cause extra current such that the I-V characteristics continue to remain consistent with the TED process even at low temperatures. The inhomogeneities are believed to have a Gaussian distribution with a mean barrier height of 0.80 V and a standard deviation of 0.05 V at zero-bias. Also, the effect of bias is shown to homogenize barrier heights at a slightly higher mean value.