Reduction of the effective height of metal–n-InP Schottky barriers using thin epitaxial layers

Abstract

Reduction of the effective height of metal–n‐InP Schottky barriers from 0.4 to 0.24 eV has been achieved by utilizing thin epitaxial n⁺ surface layers which are fully depleted at zero bias. A novel ’’ramp‐etching’’ technique has been used to investigate the effect of n⁺ thickness on current‐voltage characteristics and shows that further effective reductions are possible using thicker n⁺ layers which are not depleted at zero bias. Low height barriers of this type have applications in high‐efficiency transferred electron microwave oscillators.