Effect of series resistance on the performance of silicon Schottky diode in the presence of tin oxide layer

Abstract The current–voltage ( I – V ) characteristics of Al/SnO 2 /p-Si (MIS) Schottky diodes prepared by means of spray deposition method have been measured at 80, 295 and 350 K. In order to interpret the experimentally observed non-ideal Al/SnO 2 /p-Si Schottky diode parameters such as, the series resistance R s , barrier height Φ B and ideality factor n , a novel calculation method has been reported by taking into account the applied voltage drop across interfacial oxide layer V i and ideality factor n in the current transport mechanism. The values obtained for V i were subtracted from the applied voltage values V and then the values of R s were recalculated. The parameters obtained by accounting for the voltage drop V i have been compared with those obtained without considering the above voltage drop. It is shown that the values of R s estimated from Cheung’s method were strongly temperature-dependent and decreased with increasing temperature. It is shown that the voltage drop across the interfacial layer will increase the ideality factor and the voltage dependence of the I – V characteristics. The interface state density N ss of the diodes has an exponential growth with bias towards the top of the valance band for each temperature; for example, from 2.37 × 10 13 eV −1 cm −2 in 0.70− E v eV to 7.47 × 10 13 eV −1 cm −2 in 0.62− E v eV for 295 K. The mean N ss estimated from the I – V measurements decreased with increasing the temperature from 8.29 × 10 13 to 2.20 × 10 13 eV −1 cm −2 .