Electrical and photoelectrical properties of Schottky diode construction with three-dimensional (3D) graphene aerogel interlayer

Abstract Graphene aerogel (GA) is the world's lightest material with an extraordinarily low density. This low density, in combination with the high electrical conductivity, makes GA a promising candidate for various applications such as batteries, supercapacitors, sensors, and so on. Motivated by this idea, in this study, the use of GA as an interface material in metal/interlayer/semiconductor Schottky device configuration is discussed for the first time in the literature. Morphological and optical properties of the GA material was characterized with SEM/EDS, TEM, and UV–Vis analysis. Also, the electrical parameters of Ni/GA/n-Si/Al device such as ideality factor (n), barrier height (Φb) and series resistance (Rs) were investigated through current-voltage (I-V) studies to understand the effect of interlayer on the device properties. For this purpose, three different approximations (the thermionic emission (TE) theory, Norde, and Cheung) were used to calculate the mentioned device parameters. On the other hand, the I-V characteristics of Ni/GA/n-Si/Al Schottky device structure under different light intensities were studied to determine the photoelectrical parameters of the device. The results show that the fabricated devices can have potential in the optoelectronic application as photosensitive diode.