Sol-gel growth and characterization of a new p-NiO/n-GaAs structure

A new p-NiO/n-GaAs heterostructure was fabricated by a simple and cheap sol-gel route. X-ray diffraction, atomic force microscope and UV/VIS studies indicated that nano-sized NiO film had polycrystalline cubic bunsenite crystal structure with optical band gap of 3.75 eV. The energy dispersive x-ray mapping analysis proved the homogenous distribution of nickel and oxygen elements on GaAs surface. The electrical characterization of p-NiO/n-GaAs structure showed a rectifying behavior with rectification ratio 3.3 × 104 at +2.0 V in the dark for p-NiO/n-GaAs structure. The ideality factor and barrier height were calculated as 2.21 and 0.76 eV. The results suggest that p-NiO/n-GaAs structure can be used in many electronic applications.