Schottky contacts of refractory metal nitrides on gallium nitride using reactive sputtering

Schottky contacts of refractory metal nitrides formed by reactive sputtering on n-type gallium nitride (GaN) were electrically evaluated, including film resistivity, Schottky characteristics and thermal stability. For the metal nitrides of TiNx, MoNx and ZrNx, resistivities of 108.3, 159.0 and 270.0 μΩcm were obtained, respectively. Current–voltage (I–V) characteristics showed that the ideality factor varied from 1.03 to 1.16, while the Schottky barrier height (SBH) varied from 0.66 to 0.79 eV for the three kinds of Schottky contacts. Especially for the ZrNx contact, the ideality factor and SBH were improved after annealing at 800 °C for 30 s. Schottky contact utilizing a refractory metal nitride on GaN shows its potential to develop thermally stable GaN devices.