Effect of Au8+ irradiation on Ni/n-GaP Schottky diode: Its influence on interface state density and relaxation time

The in-situ capacitance-frequency and conductance-frequency measurements of 100 MeV Au8+ swift heavy ion irradiated Ni/n-GaP Schottky structure at a constant bias voltage have been carried out in the frequency range 1 kHz-1 MHz at room temperature. The interface states density and the relaxation time of the charge carriers have been calculated from Nicollian and Brews method. Various dielectric parameters such as dielectric constant, dielectric loss, loss tangent, series resistance, ac conductivity, real and imaginary parts of electric modulus have been extracted and analyzed under complex permittivity and complex electric modulus formalisms. The capacitance and conductance characteristics are found to exhibit complex behaviors at lower frequency region (1-20 kHz) for all the samples. The observed peaks and dips at low frequency region are attributed to the relaxation mechanisms of charge carriers and the interface or dipolar polarization at the interface. The dielectric properties are found to be effectively changed by the ion fluence which is attributed to the variation in interface states density and their relaxation time.