On the minority charge storage for an epitaxial Schottky-barrier diode

Abstract

The minority-carrier injection and charge storage in an epitaxial Schottky-barrier diode are analyzed. Based on the assumption of negligible recombination in the epitaxial layer, formal solutions for the minority current injection ratio and charge storage time are derived. In contrast to Scharfetter's analysis [1], present analysis takes both the drift and diffusion components of majority- and minority-carrier currents into consideration and is valid for all injection levels. Simple analytical expressions result for the special cases of low and high injection levels. The effects of device parameters on the minority carrier storage time are studied.