Unpinning of Fermi level in nanometer-sized Schottky contacts on GaAs and InP

Transport properties of two types of electrochemically produced nanometer-sized GaAs and InP Schottky contacts were investigated. One is macroscopic contacts containing many nano-dots and the other is isolated single-dot contacts. Macroscopic contacts showed near ideal thermionic emission characteristics with ideality factors close to unity. I-V characteristics of single nano-dor, contacts directly measured by a conductive AFM probe showed nonlinear log I-V behavior with large and voltage-dependent ideality factors. The latter was explained by potential profile modification due to Fermi level pinning on surrounding free surfaces. Both types of contacts indicated that Fermi level pinning disappears as the dot size is reduced, indicating that strong Fermi level pinning is not intrinsic to Schottky contacts. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.