11 Ohmic contacts.pdfVIP

Ohmic contacts ? Common techniques to make ohmic contacts – Choose metal so that its work function F is close to that of semiconductors metal Fsemi thermal ionic – Insert thin layer of narrow bandgap material between metal and semiconductor – Increase the doping level near the semiconductor surface as high as possible tunneling assisted ? Ohmic contacts should be -6 2 – Low contact resistance 10 ?cm – Thermally stable does not degrade at elevated temperature or react with oxygen , which requires no phase change or no phase change leading to high resistance – Smooth morphology – Compatibility with the whole device process ? Both semiconductors and metal sources should be CLEAN! Michaelson, IBM J. of RD, 1978 Slide # 1 Common Techniques for Ohmic contacts i Ohmic contact by band alignment E vac Evac φB φS - φM E χ F φM φ χ+E -E φ M c F S n doped For n-type E F semiconductor. Reverse for p-type φB band bending ii Ohmic contact by high doping ? Usually for compound semiconductors Electrons from the ohmic contact by band alignment is n-doped conduction band hard to realize due to surface states and Fermi pinning. For p-type, the problem can move very is caused by unavailability of metals easily to the with large enough work function + metal and vice n doped ? High n-type doping required for ohmic versa by contacts to n-type semiconductors, which can also be realized by interfacial tunneling layer reaction chemistry Slide # 2 Ohmic on n-GaN ? Possible metals: Ag, Nb, Ti, Al, In, Ta, Cr – Ag: poor adhesion – Nb: extremely easy to oxidize thus difficult to process – Ti: formation of TiN intermetallic and high N vacancies in GaN - good! But easy to oxidize… need a stable cap like Au – Al: formation of AlN not intermetallic and high N vacancies in GaN - ok! Also easy to oxidize… Au cap is necessary – In: most popularly used for quick contacts – Ta: studied by Qiao et al. 5.7e10-7 ?cm2 on AlGaN/G