Finding
Paper
Abstract
Contact mechanisms and design principles of alloyed ohmic contacts to n-GaN are investigated. For the investigation, both tunnel contacts and thermionic contacts are considered. While the tunnel contacts include the Ti/Al/Ti/Au, Ti/Al/Ni/Au, Ti/Al/Pd/Au, (Ta,Ti)/Ni/Au, Ti/Al/Mo/Au, and Ti/Au/Pd/Au contacts, the thermionic contacts include the Ni/Au contacts. The proposed design principles correctly dictate the characteristics of all these contacts. At present, tunneling is believed to be the primary mechanism for low resistivity of the tunnel contacts. The present study demonstrates that both tunneling and thermionic emission are equally important for the low resistivity of these contacts. Band-gap narrowing and/or image force lowering due to heavy doping also contribute to the resistivity reduction of these contacts. An exciting feature of the present study is the observation of a very low work function intermetallic alloy formed during annealing of an appropriate combination of large work function metal...
Authors
S. Mohammad
Journal
Journal of Applied Physics