Analysis of temperature dependent current-conduction mechanisms in Au/TiO2/n-4H-SiC (metal/insulator/semiconductor) type Schottky barrier diodes

In order to determine the effective current-conduction mechanisms in Au/TiO2/n-4H-SiC (metal-insulator semiconductor) type Schottky barrier diodes (SBDs), their current-voltage (I-V) measurements were carried out in the temperature range of 200–380 K. Some electrical parameters, such as ideality factor (n), zero-bias barrier height (BH) (ΦBo), series and shunt resistances (Rs, Rsh), were obtained as 5.09, 0.81 eV, 37.43 Ω, and 435 kΩ at 200 K and 2.68, 0.95 eV, 5.99 Ω, and 73 kΩ at 380 K, respectively. The energy density distribution profile of surface states (Nss) was extracted from the forward-bias I-V data by taking into account voltage dependent of the ideality factor (nV), effective BH (Φe), and Rs for 200, 300, and 380 K. The Ln(I) vs V plots are completely parallel in the intermediate bias voltages, which may be well explained by field emission (FE) mechanism for each temperature. On the other hand, the high value of n cannot be explained with this mechanism. Therefore, to explain the change in BH and n with temperature, ΦBo vs q/2kT plot was drawn to obtain an evidence of a Gaussian distribution (GD) of the BHs and thus the mean value of BH (Φ¯Bo) and standard deviation (σso) values were found from this plot as 1.396 eV and 0.176 V, respectively. The Φ¯Bo and Richardson constant (A*) values were found as 1.393 eV and 145.5 A.cm−2 K−2 using modified Ln(Io/T2)-(q2σs2/2k2T2) vs q/kT plot, respectively. It is clear that all of the obtained main electrical parameters were found as a strong function of temperature. These results indicated that the current conduction mechanism in Au/TiO2/n-4 H-SiC (SBD) well obey the FE and GD mechanism rather than other mechanisms.