Fabrication and current-voltage characteristics of NiOx/ZnO based MIIM tunnel diode

Enhanced asymmetric and non-linear characteristics of Ni-NiOx based MIM diode has been reported by the addition of a second insulator layer ZnO to form MIIM configuration. These properties are required for applications like energy-harvesting devices, terahertz electronics, macro electronics, etc. In this work, single insulator layer Ni-NiOx-Cr and double insulator Ni-NiOx-ZnO-Cr tunnel diodes were fabricated and their I-V characteristics were studied. A significant increase by one order of magnitude in asymmetry has been observed in case of bilayer NiOx/ZnO dielectric configuration at low voltages. The sensitivity of the NiOx and NiOx/ZnO dielectric configuration in MIM stack was 11 V−1 and 16 V−1. The improved performance of the bilayer insulator diode is due to the second insulator which enables resonant tunneling or step-tunneling. Resonant tunneling was found to be dominant through trap assisted tunneling in the NiOx/ZnO diode.