Hole Schottky barrier height enhancement and its application to metal-semiconductor-metal photodetectors

Abstract

Hole Schottky barrier heights on GaAs have been studied experimentally by using a conventional metal-semiconductor-metal photodetector (MSMPD) structure. The Schottky barrier height for holes was obtained directly by the hole-current dominated dark current measurement of the MSMPD. With a thin, highly doped surface layer, control of the Schottky barrier heights for holes from 0.48 to 0.79 eV was obtained. By using these engineered Schottky contacts in the MSMPDs, over three orders of magnitude reduction in the dark currents of the MSMPDs was achieved. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.