Temperature dependence of electrical parameters of the Au/n-InP Schottky barrier diodes

The temperature dependence of current–voltage (I–V) and capacitance–voltage (C–V) characteristics of the Au/n-InP Schottky barrier diodes has been measured in the temperature range of 80–320 K. The forward I–V characteristics are analysed on the basis of standard thermionic emission (TE) theory and the assumption of a Gaussian distribution of the barrier heights (BHs). It has been shown that the ideality factor decreases while the barrier height increases with increasing temperatures, on the basis of TE theory. Furthermore, the homogeneous BH value of approximately 0.524 eV for the device has been obtained from the linear relationship between the temperature-dependent experimentally effective BHs and ideality factors. The modified Richardson plot, according to inhomogeneity of the BHs, has a good linearity over the temperature range. The value of Richardson constant A* has been found to be 5.97 A cm−2 K−2, which is close to the theoretical value of 9.4 A cm−2 K−2 for n-InP. Moreover, the temperature coefficient of the BH is found to be −3.16 × 10−4 eV K−1 for Au/n-InP.