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 °C). X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis shows that the film annealed at 600 °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 °C exhibits sub-micro-sized and square-shaped grains. The thermionic emission (TE) model determines the diode parameters such as barrier height (ΦB), ideality factor (n), series resistance (Rs) and saturation current density (Js) 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 °C).