Effects of the barrier metal thickness and hydrogen pre-annealing on the characteristic parameters of Au/n-GaAs metal–semiconductor Schottky contacts

It is important to investigate the factors that influence the metal–semiconductor interfaces. Some of these factors are the effects of the semiconductor surface and barrier metal. Therefore, in this work we have investigated the influences of hydrogen pre-annealing and barrier metal thickness on the Au/n-GaAs Schottky barrier diodes. Having performed current–voltage and capacitance–voltage measurements, the values of the ideality factor and barrier height for the un-annealed diodes range from 1.14 and 0.855 eV (for 5 nm) to 1.08 and 0.794 eV (for 100 nm), respectively. Also, the same parameters for the H2 pre-annealed diodes range from 1.78 and 0.920 eV (for 5 nm) to 1.11 and 0.774 eV (for 100 nm), respectively.