Schottky Barrier Height Engineering in β-Ga2O3 Using SiO2 Interlayer Dielectric

This paper reports on the modulation of Schottky barrier heights (SBH) on three different orientations of beta-Ga2O3 by insertion of an ultra-thin SiO2 dielectric interlayer at the metal-semiconductor junction, which can potentially lower the Fermi-level pinning (FLP) effect due to metal-induced gap states (MIGS). Pt and Ni metal-semiconductor (MS) and metal-interlayer-semiconductor (MIS) Schottky barrier diodes were fabricated on bulk n-type doped beta-Ga2O3 single crystal substrates along the (010), (-201) and (100) orientations and were characterized by room temperature current-voltage (I-V) and capacitance-voltage (C-V) measurements. Pt MIS diodes exhibited 0.53 eV and 0.37 eV increment in SBH along the (010) and (-201) orientations respectively as compared to their respective MS counterparts. The highest SBH of 1.81 eV was achieved on the (010)-oriented MIS SBD using Pt metal. The MIS SBDs on (100)-oriented substrates exhibited a dramatic increment (>1.5x) in SBH as well as reduction in reverse leakage current. The use of thin dielectric interlayers can be an efficient experimental method to modulate SBH of metal/Ga2O3 junctions.