Formation and Schottky barrier height of metal contacts to β-SiC

Abstract

Formation of Schottky barrier contacts to n‐type β‐SiC(100) was systematically investigated for several metals with various physical and chemical properties. The metals (Pd, Au, Co, Ti, Ag, Tb, and Al) were deposited onto oxygen terminated (∼1 monolayer) surfaces. Metal/β‐SiC interface chemistry and Schottky barrier height φ_B during contact formation were obtained by x‐ray photoemission spectroscopy; the corresponding electrical properties of thick contacts were characterized by capacitance‐voltage and current‐voltage methods. The metal/β‐SiC interface is unreactive at room temperature. X‐ray photoemission spectroscopy and electrical measurements demonstrate that these metal contacts exhibit a wide range of φ_B , 0.95–0.16 eV; within this range an individual contact φ_B value depends strongly on the metal work function in general accord with the Schottky–Mott limit.