Effect of Annealing Temperature on Structural and Electrical Properties of Al/ZrO2/p-Si MIS Schottky Diodes

The structural and electrical properties of Al/ZrO2/p-Si Schottky barrier diodes (SBDs) have been investigated at different annealing temperatures (300, 400, 500 and 600 degrees C). X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis shows that the film annealed at 600 degrees C exhibits better crystalline nature with monoclinic phase. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis reveals that the oxidation state of ZrO2 film is Zr4+. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) image shows that the film annealed at 600 degrees C exhibits sub-micro-sized and square-shaped grains. The thermionic emission (TE) model determines the diode parameters such as barrier height (phi(B)), ideality factor (n), series resistance (R-s) and saturation current density (J(s)) from J-V characteristics and Cheung's method. The ideality factor of the Al/ZrO2/p-Si diodes decreases (3.772-3.442) with increasing annealing temperature (300-600 degrees C).