Role of ITO ultra-thin layer in improving electrical performance and thermal reliability of Au/ITO/Si/Au structure: An experimental investigation

In this paper, the role of introducing an intermediate Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) thin-film in improving the Au/Si Schottky Barrier Diodes (SBDs) electrical performance is experimentally analyzed. The Au/ITO/Si/Au structures with different ITO thicknesses were fabricated using RF magnetron sputtering technique. The current-voltage (I-V) characteristics of the investigated structures are analyzed, where the device electrical parameters are extracted. It is found that the introduced ITO thin-film has a significant impact in reducing the ideality factor (n=1.25), the interfacial defects (Nss=1.5×1012 eV−1cm−2) and the series resistance (Rs=32Ω). Our study demonstrates that the use of ITO intermediate thin-film can generate minority carrier injection effects, which lead to achieve the dual role of enhanced derived current and lower series resistance. Moreover, the structure thermal stability behavior is investigated and compared with those of the conventional design in order to reveal the device reliability against the thermal variation. Furthermore, the effect of the annealing on the device thermal stability is also analyzed. Our investigation shows that the annealed structure provides the possibility for avoiding the degradation related-heating effects. Therefore, the proposed Au/ITO/Si/Au structure offers the opportunity for bridging the gap between achieving superior electrical performance and enhanced thermal stability. The obtained results may facilitate the design of high-performance SBDs for sensing and microelectronic applications.