Investigation of swift heavy ion irradiation effects on Au/CdTe and Au/CdZnTe Schottky barrier diode

The influence of 100 MeV Ag7+ ion irradiation on current-voltage (I-V) and capacitance-voltage (C-V) characteristics of Au/CdTe and Au/Cd0.9Zn0.1Te Schottky barrier diodes as a function of fluence are investigated. The irradiation fluence was varied from 1×1010 to 1×1013ionscm-2. The current transport across the metal-semiconductor junction for pure and irradiated Schottky barrier diodes has been described by the thermionic-field emission process. Also, there are several mechanisms such as barrier tunneling, carrier compensation and generation-recombination mechanism, which may account for the I-V and C-V characteristics after irradiation. This variation in various diode parameters such as ideality factor (n), Schottky barrier height (Φb) and saturation current (Is) has been studied as a function of irradiation fluence. The energy loss mechanism of swift heavy ions at the metal-semiconductor interface is used to explain the change in Schottky barrier diode parameters. The observed modification at interface states of Schottky barrier height over a wide fluence range are mainly due to intense electronic energy loss mechanism and latent ion track formation created by swift heavy ions.