Effects of electron confinement on thermionic emission current in a modulation doped

heterostructure
Amro Anwar, Bahram Nabet, James Culp, and Fransisco Castro

Citation: 85, (1999); doi: 10.1063/1.369627

View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.369627
View Table of Contents: http://aip.scitation.org/toc/jap/85/5
Published by the American Institute of Physics
JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHYSICS VOLUME 85, NUMBER 5 1 MARCH 1999

Effects of electron confinement on thermionic emission current

in a modulation doped heterostructure
Amro Anwar, Bahram Nabet,a) James Culp, and Fransisco Castro
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Drexel University, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania 19104
~Received 5 August 1998; accepted for publication 3 December 1998!
We discuss mechanisms responsible for the reduction of electron thermionic emission current from
a Schottky contact to a modulation doped semiconductor compared to a bulk semiconductor. The
effects discussed include metal to semiconductor barrier height enhancement due to proposed
electron–electron cloud interaction, confined potential of the reduced dimensional systems, and the
reduced dimensional nature of the density of states in the semiconductor. These effects describe the
observed lowering of the dark current, and hence noise, of a modulation doped heterojunction based
photodetector compared to a conventional bulk device. © 1999 American Institute of Physics.
@S0021-8979~99!04605-8#

I. INTRODUCTION Fig. 1, to directly contact carriers at the heterointerface lat-

The rectifying Schottky contact is a basic building block
of a wide variety of semiconductor devices including diodes
and transistors. Although current transport mechanisms in a
Schottky metal contact to a semiconductor are still actively
researched, it is generally accepted that the energy barrier
height from the metal to the semiconductor is determined by
Fermi-level pinning and, particularly in compounds, be-
comes independent of the metal work function.1–3 In this
article we propose that when lateral Schottky metal contact is
made to a modulation doped semiconductor, the barrier
height is affected by the confinement of electrons caused by
the electric field due to the heterointerface. Since this con-
finement can be controlled by various means such as by
variation of doping or the width of the layer thicknesses, it
becomes possible to design contacts with increased barrier
heights despite Fermi-level pinning. Most relevant to the
present work is that the increase of barrier height decreases
the reverse saturation current, and hence the dark current and
noise, of a Schottky photodiode.
II. DEVICE STRUCTURE
The structure employed for this study is shown in Fig. 1
and is that of a typical high electron mobility transistor
~HEMT! where an n-type doped 500 Å thick layer of
Al0.24Ga0.76As is grown by molecular beam epitaxy ~MBE!
on top of GaAs following a thin ~100 Å! spacer layer. The
energy band diagram of this structure in the direction of
growth is shown in Fig. 2 for two doping concentrations N d
of the wide-gap material, N d 5331017 cm23 and 6
31017 cm23. The charge concentration due to the transfer of
electrons from AlGaAs to GaAs is also shown in Fig. 2 using
the ATLAS™ device simulation software for a gateless
HEMT device with the same structure. A major distinction,
however, between this and a HEMT structure is that here the
contacts are Schottky metal and are deposited, as shown in
a!
Electronic mail: nabel@ece.drexel.edu
erally. This device is thus a heterojunction metal–
semiconductor–metal ~HMSM!. The effect of the built-in
field of the Schottky contacts in the lateral direction will
change both the energy band diagrams and the carrier con-
centration distributions shown in Fig. 2, nevertheless, the
electrons remain confined by the strong field at the hetero-
interface to its proximity on the GaAs side, the tail of elec-
tron distribution will extend beyond the two-dimensional
electron gas ~2DEG! into the bulk of the GaAs.
Details of device fabrication are reported elsewhere.4 It
has been shown that the proposed device has about an order
of magnitude less dark current than a conventional MSM
device and up to a factor of four more dc photocurrent. This
device does retain other advantages of MSM devices by be-
ing monolithically integrable with HEMT technology, and
hence optoelectronic integrated circuits ~OEICs! and micro-
wave monolithic integrated circuits ~MMICs!. The current–
voltage ~I–V! behavior of two devices with identical struc-
ture and geometry, but for the two AlGaAs doping levels of
Fig. 2, is shown in Fig. 3. It is seen that the light response
does not change appreciably but the dark current is strongly
affected. Most importantly the dark current decreases for the
sample with higher doping concentration of AlGaAs. This is
contrary to what is observed in a HEMT device where the
increase in channel charge due to increased doping of
AlGaAs would proportionally increase current conduction.
Similar behavior is observed when the AlGaAs layer is
thinned; the current in the HMSM device increases while the
opposite would occur in a device with ohmic contacts. Since
current conduction is dominated by the reverse biased
Schottky contact, in what follows we propose possible
mechanism by which confinement of the carriers at the het-
erointerface can affect the potential barrier height, and hence
thermionic emission current, of the metal electrons.
III. EFFECT OF CONFINED ELECTRON CLOUD
For a Schottky contact the quasisaturation reverse bias
current is described by the Richardson and Dushman equa-
tion

0021-8979/99/85(5)/2663/4/$15.00 2663 © 1999 American Institute of Physics

2664 J. Appl. Phys., Vol. 85, No. 5, 1 March 1999
FIG. 1. Structure of the heterojunction metal–semiconductor-metal device.
S D S D
q f Bn qD f im
J5A * T 2 exp 2 exp ~ A/cm2! , ~1!
k BT k BT
where f Bn is the Schottky barrier height, A * is the Richard-
son constant, D f im is the barrier lowering due to the image
force, and other symbols have their usual meaning. Equation
~1! shows the significance of the Schottky barrier height in
determining the value of the dark current. Barrier lowering
mechanisms, such as image force lowering, are generally
used to describe bias dependence of the dark current. A
modulation doped structure such as the HMSM device of
Fig. 1, however, has the distinctive feature that the thermi-
onic emission of electrons from the metal side is to a channel
that is heavily populated by electrons which are uncompen-
sated and are spatially separated from the donor ions in the
AlGaAs layer. In fact as seen in Fig. 2, for the two doping
N d of AlGaAs, even beyond the near vicinity of the interface
~about 85 Å on the GaAs side! where a high density 2DEG
exists, the free electron concentration is still at least an order
of magnitude larger than the 1013/cm3 nonintentional doping
background. We propose here that the reduction of the dark
current is partially due to barrier enhancement caused by the
repulsive Coulombic interaction between the electrons emit-
ted from the metal, and the uncompensated electrons in the
GaAs side. This type of electronic interaction is unlike
FIG. 2. Conduction band diagram, and charge distribution in the direction of
growth, for the first 1000 Å in the GaAs side for two AlGaAs doping
concentrations N d1 5331017, N d2 5631017; effect of lateral Schottky field
is neglected.
Anwar et al.
FIG. 3. The dark, and dc light current–voltage relationships of the hetero-
junction device for the two AlGaAs doping concentrations N d1 53
31017, N d2 5631017.
many-body electron–electron interactions treated by Hartree,
and Hartree–Fock equations. It is also distinct from inclusion
of higher order terms used to describe electron–electron in-
teraction in scattering theory. The difference with both treat-
ments is that here the interaction is between emitted elec-
trons and an electronic cloud separated by a depletion
distance, not an interaction of electrons within the same
group that can effectively cancel out.
Since the carrier concentration varies in the vertical ~z!
direction, the depth, the effect of the electron cloud on the
barrier becomes z dependent, requiring a two-dimensional
approach. In the present development we calculate this effect
at an arbitrary z point in the confined 2DEG or beyond, thus
reducing the problem to a one-dimensional formalism.
Thus at any such point, we can consider thermionic
emission along the lateral ~x! direction into an electron cloud
n(z,x)/cm3, where x extends to the anode at L, as shown in
Fig. 1. For simplicity, n(x) may be assumed to be zero in the
depletion region of width d of the metal–semiconductor con-
tact and constant beyond that point, extension of this ap-
proach to a nonzero carrier profile is straightforward. Fur-
ther, we assume an abrupt transition between the depleted
region and the modulated part of the channel.
Under these conditions, the lateral electric field Ee at the
edge of the depletion region due to these carriers in the elec-
tron cloud can be calculated from the Poisson equation as
qn ~ L2d !
Ee 5 , ~2!
«s
where « s is the static dielectric constant at the semiconduc-
tor. This electric field exerts a repulsive force on the elec-
trons that are emitted from the metal to the semiconductor.
The effect of this force can be determined in the same man-
ner as the effect of semiconductor band bending and the
image force on the barrier height as follows.
Without electron–electron cloud interaction, the electro-
static potential c (x) is given by1
q
c ~ x ! 5 f Bn2 2Em x, ~3!
16p « s x
where Em is the maximum electric field due to band bending
in the depletion region. Equation ~3! shows that the metal–
J. Appl. Phys., Vol. 85, No. 5, 1 March 1999
semiconductor barrier height f Bn is lowered by the second
term due to image force, and the third term due to depletion
region electric field. If the electric field due to the electron
cloud Ee is included as a boundary condition, then c (x) is
derived, following similar steps, as
q IV. EFFECT OF REDUCED DIMENSIONAL
c ~ x ! 5 f Bn2 2 ~ Em 2Ee ! x, ~4!
16p « s x
where the negative sign indicates the repulsive nature of this
field. This shows an enhancement in the Schottky barrier due
to the electron cloud compared to the case of bulk semicon-
ductor, by a factor of D f e2e 5Ee x m , where x m is the point
of maximum potential, the value of which can be evaluated
by differentiating Eq. ~4!. The effective barrier height is then
c (x m ).
For a conservative estimate of the channel length
(L2d)'1 mm, x m will be about 50 Å. And for an average
typical value of n51016/cm3 a barrier enhancement D f e2e
of 70 meV can be achieved. In the actual two-dimensional
structure this barrier enhancement is a function of the posi-
tion of the point of electron emission, because of the varia-
tion of n with depth z. Thus different barrier values will exist
along the metal emission surface. In the Z direction this bar-
rier enhancement will extend from the GaAs side of the het-
erointerface along the confined states in the 2DEG to the
bulk of the GaAs side, with its peak in the 2DEG due to the
high concentration of carriers in this region. The thermionic
emission current can then be evaluated by integration of
I5W E0
z
S
A * T 2 exp 2
q ~ f Bn2D f im
k BT D is observed that in the 2D system the barrier height has been
3exp 2 S qD f e2e
k BT D
dz ~ A! , ~5!
where W is the length of the contact. Based on the above, if
the carrier concentration in the channel is increased the bar-
rier height will also increase according to Eq. ~4! and hence
current will reduce according to Eq. ~5!. This, as mentioned
previously, is qualitatively consistent with the data of Fig. 3
which is opposite to what is observed in a HEMT device
with ohmic contacts.
A similar technique for modulating the Schottky barrier
height has been proposed5,6 where a thin p 1 layer was grown
on an n-type semiconductor before deposition of the metal
contact. This layer tailors the doping profile in the depletion
region thus enhancing the barrier height. That mechanism
has been utilized in Ref. 7 to enhance the Schottky barrier
height and lower the dark current in Schottky photodiodes.
The doping profile in the referred studies yields an electric
field of the same direction as Ee due to the negatively ionized
space charges. It has also been shown8 that incorporation of
a thin ~few atomic layers! doped layer at the interface of a
heterojunction can alter the band gap discontinuity due to the
dipole created at the heterointerface. The major difference
between the process described in this article and the refer-
enced studies in terms of application, however, is that here
the amount of electron concentration, and hence the barrier,
can be modulated by gating the structure or by changing the
Anwar et al. 2665
thickness of the n-AlGaAs layer or its doping. This means
that despite the pinning of the Fermi level, the barrier height
can be controlled within a range of tens of meV in a modu-
lation doped structure.
ELECTRON GAS
Another possible mechanism of barrier height enhance-
ment in a modulation doped structure is due to the reduced
dimensional nature of the 2DEG. If electron motion is re-
stricted to the triangular quantum well at the AlGaAs/GaAs
interface, the first available energy state is above the conduc-
tion band by the amount of the first confined state E 0 . Based
on this boundary condition, a model of thermionic emission
from a 2DEG to a metal can be developed following the
same steps as in the case of a bulk, three-dimensional ~3D!
semiconductor.9 Considering the energy independent density
of states N(E)54 p m * /h 2 of a two-dimensional system and
accounting for only one subband, the current can be found to
be
S D S D
q ~ f Bn! E0
I 2D5WA 2D
* T 3/2 exp 2 exp 2 ~ A! ~6!
k BT k BT
where A 2D* 5q(8 p k 3B m * ) 1/2/h 2 @ A/(cm K2/3) # replaces the
3D Richardson constant.
Comparison of ideal current conduction between a 3D
and 2D system, as shown in Eq. ~6!, and metal to bulk con-
tact of Eq. ~1! points to several important differences. First, it
increased by the value of the first confined state as indicated
by the term exp(2E0 /kBT), i.e., the effective increase in the
band gap due to the first confined state increases the barrier
height. Second, the prefractor of the exponential term in Eq.
~6! depends on the 2D density of states function which is
smaller than that of the bulk if the edge of the conduction
band is at E c . 10 In addition to device dimension, the prefac-
tor is based on terms due to the integration of carriers with
velocity components confined to a plane, rather than a vol-
ume, as is the case for a 3D system. Numerically, the expo-
nential term shows a current reduction by a factor of about
12, based on a calculated value of E 0 565 meV. Regarding
the prefactor term the constants are A 2D * 52.6
31024 (A/cm K2/3) and A * 58.6 A/cm2 K2, for 2D and 3D
cases, respectively ~i.e., the two have different units!. In ad-
dition, recalling that the quantum well width is assumed to
be zero for the 2D case, a direct comparison of the prefactor
terms becomes inappropriate. Nevertheless, the magnitude of
the exponential prefactor term in Eq. ~5! scales with channel
thickness and its value for a 150 Å thick channel if assumed
to be 3D is the same as that of a 2D one. Of course in the
device that is presented here, total current conduction needs
to be calculated by incorporating various parasitic paths of
current transport as well as the effect of holes in conduction,
hence experimental results are meant to qualitatively support
the proposed physical processes.
A similar argument based on the effect of reduced di-
mensionality has been proposed in Ref. 11 to explain barrier
height enhancement in a Schottky contact to InGaAs 2DEG.
2666 J. Appl. Phys., Vol. 85, No. 5, 1 March 1999
In that study an increase of 120–200 meV compared to the
barrier height of Schottky contact to bulk InGaAs was mea-
sured, while the calculated barrier enhancement due to E 0
was expected to be around 60 meV. We suggest that this
extra amount is due to electron–electron cloud interaction
D f e2e . Furthermore, it may be noted that the process of
repulsion by the electron cloud that is described here has
similarities to low temperature conductivity in zero-
dimensional systems such as in quantum dots, and single
electron transistors, wherein conductivity is controlled by the
Coulombic repulsion ~blockade! of these droplets of
charge.12
V. CONCLUSIONS
In conclusion, we have proposed that electron–electron
cloud interaction in a modulation doped heterostructure con-
tacted by Schottky metal leads to an increase of barrier
height. We have formulated a simple model of this interac-
tion. In addition, reduced dimensionality of the electron gas
is shown to enhance the barrier height by the amount of the
first confined state which further reduces the thermionic
emission current. The two-dimensional density of states in
the semiconductor affects current transport from metal to a
2DEG and is shown to be implicit in a revised Richardson
constant that was derived for ideal metal to 2D contact.
These effects help explain the observed room temperature
reduction of the reverse saturation current for a modulation
doped heterostructure when the channel carrier concentration
increases. Determination of the relative importance of these
effects in current conduction will be possible by noting that
Anwar et al.
they have different temperature dependencies. Experimental
results are shown to qualitatively agree with theoretical ex-
pectation, particularly it is experimentally shown that the
modulation doped photodetector devices examined in this
communication have much lower dark current, and hence
noise, than conventional bulk ~3D! devices.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors are deeply indebted to the late Professor
Allen Rothwarf for discussions and suggestions. ATLAS™
device simulation software was generously provided by Sil-
vaco, Inc. Device fabrication and measurement were per-
formed with the help of NSF Grant No. DUE 6950350.
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