Inhomogeneity of barrier heights of transparent Ag/ITO Schottky contacts on n-type GaN annealed at different temperatures

We report on the formation of high barrier-height and transparent Ag/ITO Schottky contacts on n-GaN (nd = 5 × 1018 cm−3) for optoelectronic and transparent electronic devices. Calculations using the thermionic emission model-based current-voltage characteristics of the samples annealed at various temperatures showed small Schottky barrier heights (SBHs) of 0.31-0.37 eV and ideality factors of 1.84-2.19. Conventional activation energy plot showed greatly smaller Richardson constant than the theoretical value. To understand such abnormality, the modified Richardson plot, a model of lateral SBH variation with Gaussian distribution, and capacitance-voltage method were used, where their SBHs were estimated to be in the range 0.74-0.93 eV. Together with the temperature-dependent SBHs and ideality factors, these results imply that SBH behavior could be explained in terms of barrier inhomogeneity at the interfaces. The Ag/ITO samples annealed at 500 °C transmitted 80.9% at 560 nm. The X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS) Ga 2p core level spectra from the interfaces of the samples shifted toward either higher or lower energies. Scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM)-energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy mapping results revealed the outdiffusion of Ga atoms from n-GaN when annealed at 500 °C. Based on the electrical, XPS and STEM results, the annealing temperature dependence of the SBHs is described and discussed.