Fabrication and characterization of high performance InAlZnO Schottky barrier diode and its application in ultraviolet photodetection

High-performance InAlZnO (IAZO) Schottky barrier diodes (SBDs) with top Pd/IAZO Schottky contact were fabricated, and the influence of sputtering power used to prepare IAZO films on the device performance was investigated. The 50 W-fabricated IAZO SBD exhibited the relatively best electrical properties, including a close-to-unity ideality factor (1.03), a high rectification ratio (1.83 × 107), a low series resistance (237.5 mΩ cm2), large barrier heights (0.87 and 0.82 eV), and a small barrier inhomogeneity (0.05 eV), which was mainly due to the least background doping density (8.43 × 1015/cm3) and interface state density (4.30 × 1010/eV cm2) at 50 W. Meanwhile, the IAZO SBDs prepared at 50 W also displayed the best device uniformity and highest reverse breakdown voltage (−15.23 ± 0.405 V). A 50 W-fabricated IAZO SBD with a horizontal structure was then applied to the ultraviolet photodetector, and it showed good detection effect, especially the fast response with an average rise time of 0.208 s and an average decay time of 0.094 s. Our study indicates the great research value and development potential of IAZO SBDs in future integrated circuits and other fields.