Методики исследования электрического контактного сопротивления в структуре металлическая пленка--полупроводник

The electrical contact resistance significantly affects the efficiency of thermoelements. In the case of high doped thermoelectric materials, the tunneling mechanism of conductivity prevails at metal-semiconductor interface, which makes it possible to obtain a contact resistance of less than 10-8 Ohm•m2. Low resistance values significantly complicate its experimental determination. Work present three techniques and a measuring stand for the investigation of contact resistance. The techniques are based on the measurement of the total electrical resistance, which consists of transient contact resistance and the resistance of the thermoelectric material with its subsequent exclusion. The developed techniques differ in the arrangement of the investigated contacts on the samples, in the methods of measurement and processing of the obtained results, and make it possible to determine the specific contact resistance of the order of 10-10 Ohm•m2.

Highly Conductive Nanocrystalline Diamond Films and Electronic Metallization Scheme

By using a methane and hydrogen process gas mixture in an appropriate hot-filament CVD process without further dopant, high electrical conductivity of over 100 S/cm has been achieved in nanocrystalline diamond films deposited on silicon single-crystalline substrates. Furthermore, it was found that an oxygen reactive-ion etching process (O-RIE) can improve the diamond film surface’s electron affinity, thus reducing the specific contact resistance. The reduction of the specific contact resistance by a factor of up to 16 was realized by the oxygen ion etching process, down to 6×10−6 Ωcm2 We provide a qualitative explanation for the mechanism behind the contact resistance reduction in terms of the electron affinity of the diamond surface. With the aid of XPS, AFM, and surface wetting measurements, we confirmed that a higher surface electron affinity is responsible for the lower specific contact resistance of the oxygen-terminated nanocrystalline diamond films.

Formation and investigation of characteristics of thermoresistive structures based on vanadium oxide films

The processes of reactive magnetron sputtering of a V target in Ar/O2 gas mixture are investigated. It was found that when using a pulsed current for sputtering and a pressure in the chamber less than 0.06 Pa, the intensities of the emission lines of vanadium at 437.922 nm, argon at 750.386 nm, and oxygen at 777.417 nm with a change in the oxygen concentration in Ar/O2 gas mixtures (ГO2) have no hysteresis and unambiguously depend on the parameters of the sputtering process, which makes it possible to stabilize the process without using feedback systems. By monitoring the sputtering process by optical emission spectroscopy and depositing films on a rotating substrate of diameter 100 mm, vanadium oxide (VOx) films with nonuniformity thickness less than ±2.4 % and surface resistance less than ±2.5 % were obtained. Studies by transmission line method of the influence of the parameters of the reactive magnetron sputtering and subsequent annealing at O2 pressure of 0.04 Pa on the characteristics of thermoresistive structures based on VOx films showed that when the contacts are deposited without ion cleaning, the current-voltage characteristics (IV) and the dependence of the resistance on the length of resistors R(L) are nonlinear, which indicates the presence of a potential barrier in the contacts. Preliminary ion cleaning can significantly improve the linearity of the IV characteristic. The most linear IV characteristics were obtained for Ti contacts. However, the specific contact resistance of the VOx/Ti contact increases with an increase in the oxidation state of the VOx films and reaches ρc = 0.1 Ohm·m2 at the specific resistance of vanadium oxide ρ = 0.1 Ohm·m. The analysis of the dependences of the temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR) and ρ of VOx films on the annealing temperature showed that, upon annealing, ρ and TCR slightly decrease, i. e. there occurs a partial deoxidation of the films. However, unlike annealing at atmospheric pressure, there are no temperature regions at which a sharp decrease in the resistivity and TCR occurs.

Reliable Ohmic Contact Properties for Ni/Hydrogen-Terminated Diamond at Annealing Temperature up to 900 °C

Ohmic contact with high thermal stability is essential to promote hydrogen-terminated diamond (H-diamond) electronic devices for high-temperature applications. Here, the ohmic contact characteristics of Ni/H-diamond at annealing temperatures up to 900 °C are investigated. The measured current–voltage curves and deduced specific contact resistance (ρC) are used to evaluate the quality of the contact properties. Schottky contacts are formed for the as-received and 300 °C-annealed Ni/H-diamonds. When the annealing temperature is increased to 500 °C, the ohmic contact properties are formed with the ρC of 1.5 × 10−3 Ω·cm2 for the Ni/H-diamond. As the annealing temperature rises to 900 °C, the ρC is determined to be as low as 6.0 × 10−5 Ω·cm2. It is believed that the formation of Ni-related carbides at the Ni/H-diamond interface promotes the decrease in ρC. The Ni metal is extremely promising to be used as the ohmic contact electrode for the H-diamond-based electronic devices at temperature up to 900 °C.

Studing the Effect of Etching Process on the Ohmic Specific Contact Resistance of AlGaN/GaN HEMT

In electronic devices, ranging from integrated circuits to solar cells, the Ohmic specific contact resistance between metal and semiconductor is a measure of device performance. In this paper, the effect of Induction Coupled Plasma etching (ICP) on creating specific contact resistance between metals and semiconductors was investigated by linear transmission method (LTLM). The obtained results show that selecting etching depth and etch process conditions by ICP method before metal coating is a decisive step in the manufacture of low resistance Ohmic contact. The value of formed Ohmic specific contact resistance is the lowest when the etching depth ensures the metal layers to cover the doped AlGaN region at a distance of about 8nm above the AlGaN/GaN interface. With an ion power source (RIE) of 30W and a plasma power source (ICP) of 250W, the etching rate of AlGaN material is approximately 27.21 nm / minute. The Ohmic specific contact resistance of metal layers Ti (20nm) / Al (200nm) / Pd (60nm) / Au (100nm) with AlGaN semiconductor has an optimal value of ρc = 1.08 x 10-7 cm2, despite the sample was annealing at a relatively low temperature of 650oC, in a nitrogen atmosphere at 650oC.

Influence of Thermal Annealing on the PdAl/Au Metal Stack Ohmic Contacts to p-AlGaN

In this study, a PdAl (20 nm)/Au (30 nm) metal stack scheme is used for forming low-ohmic-resistance contact on Mg-doped (1.5 × 1017 cm−3) p-type AlGaN at various annealing temperatures. Using a circular-transmission line model, the specific contact resistance (ρc) of PdAl/Au/p-AlGaN ohmic contact is determined via the current–voltage (I–V) characteristics. As-deposited contacts demonstrate non-linear behavior. However, the contact exhibits linear I–V characteristics with excellent ohmic contact of ρc = 1.74 × 10−4Ωcm2, when annealed at 600 °C for 1 min in a N2 atmosphere. The Ga and Al vacancies created at the PdAl/Au and p-AlGaN interfaces, which act as acceptors to increase the hole concentration at the interface. The out-diffusion of Ga as well as in-diffusion of Pd and Au to form interfacial chemical reactions at the interface is observed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) measurements. The phases of the Ga–Pd and Ga–Au phases are detected by X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. Morphological results show that the surface of the contact is reasonably smooth with the root-mean-square roughness of 2.89 nm despite annealing at 600 °C. Based on the above experimental considerations, PdAl/Au/p-AlGaN contact annealed at 600 °C is a suitable p-ohmic contact for the development of high-performance electronic devices.