On the electrical and charge conduction properties of thermally evaporated MoOx on n- and p-type crystalline silicon

In this work, the electrical and charge conduction characteristics of a contact structure featuring thermally evaporated MoOx, deposited on n- and p-type crystalline silicon (c-Si), are extensively investigated by room temperature current-voltage (I-V), transmission line measurements (TLM), and temperaturedependent current-voltage measurements (I-V-T). XRD diffraction spectrum shows that the deposited MoOx film exhibits amorphous nature. From TLM measurements, the values of contact resistivity are calculated to be rho(c): 55.9 mXcm(2) for Ag/MoOx/n-Si and rho(c): 48.7 m Omega-cm(2) for Ag/MoOx/p-Si. The barrier parameters such as barrier height (phi(e)) and ideality factor (n) are investigated by the thermionic emission theory for I-V and I-V-T measurements. The phi(e), n, and conventional Richardson plot demonstrate resolute temperature dependency, obeying the barrier height of Gaussian distribution model. The uniform barrier height values are calculated to be phi(b):1.24 eV for Ag/MoOx/n-Si and /b:0.66 eV for Ag/MoOx/p-Si from the extrapolation of phi(e) at n = 1 of the linear fitting of the variation with the experimental barrier height phi(e)with ideality factor. The activation energy (Ea) and Richardson constant (A*), obtained from Richardson plot, are much smaller than phi(b) and the theoretical values of n- and p-type c-Si. The modified Richardson plot yields more reliable Richardson constant and homogeneous barrier height values of 106.2 Acm(-2) K-2 and 1.21 eV, 23.4 Acm(-2) K-2 and 0.63 eV for Ag/MoOx/n-Si and Ag/MoOx/p-Si heterostructures, respectively. The results demonstrate that thermally evaporated MoOx has particular advantages due to its good rectifying characteristics such as the extra enhancement to barrier height and low contact resistivity for interfacial layer applications.