Results in Physics 19 (2020) 103656

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Results in Physics
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The effect of temperature on the forward bias electrical characteristics of

both pure Ni and oxidized Ni/Au Schottky contacts on n-type GaN: A
case study
Ali Hajjiah a, *, Asmaa Alkhabbaz a, Hussein Badran a, Ivan Gordon b
a
Kuwait University, College of Engineering and Petroleum, Electrical Engineering Department, P.O. Box 5969, Safat 13060, Kuwait
b
IMEC (partner in EnergyVille), Kapeldreef 75, Leuven, Belgium

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The forward bias current-voltage (I-V) characteristics of both oxidized Ni/Au and pure Ni metal Schottky con­
n-type GaN tacts on n-type GaN have been investigated in the temperature range 160–400 K. The I-V curves were fitted using
Metal–semiconductor interface thermionic emission (TE) theory. It was found that the zero-bias barrier height (ϕb0) decreases while the ideality
Temperature-dependent I-V characteristics
factor (η) increases with decreasing temperature (i.e. To effect). As a result, various transport models are
Zero-bias barrier height
Barrier height inhomogeneity
considered in the analysis of the I-V experimental data in order to explain the observed anomaly in η and ϕb0. The
deviation from linearity in the To effect plot for oxidized Ni/Au can be explained in terms of Schottky barrier
height (SBH) inhomogeneity. As a result, a linear correlation between the zero-bias barrier height and ideality
factor at different temperatures was found using Tung’s theoretical approach in order to extrapolate the ho­
mogenous barrier height (ϕhom). For oxidized Ni/Au, it was found that there are two distinct ϕhom values with one
representing the low temperature range (ϕhom_1 = 1.02 eV) and another representing the high temperature range
(ϕhom_2 = 1.23 eV). However, for pure Ni, there is no inhomogeneity in the barrier height (i.e. ϕhom = 0.87 eV).
Furthermore, the ϕb0-ap vs. q/(2kT) plot also shows evidence of a Gaussian distribution of barrier heights for both
oxidezed Ni/Au (ϕb0-mean = 1.45 eV and σ s = 141 mV) and pure Ni (ϕb0-mean = 0.92 eV and σs = 69.3 mV). The 1/η
vs. 1000/T plot is constructed to investigate the different current transport mechanisms in both oxidized Ni/Au
and pure Ni. These various current transport mechanisms at different temperatures can be attributed to the
barrier inhomogeneity at the metal–semiconductor interface.

Introduction Current-voltage (I-V) characteristics analysis of Schottky barrier di­

Metal-semiconductor (MS) structures are important research ele­
ments in the characterization of new semiconductor materials and are an
important and necessary part of essentially all semiconductor electronic
and optoelectronic devices. The Schottky barrier height (SBH) is the
most important property of an MS interface because it controls the
electron transport across that interface [1]. Important progress has been
made with the fabrication of high-quality Schottky contacts on GaN in
the past several years, however, several challenging problems limiting
the electrical characteristics of devices still remain [2,3]. One such
problem regarding the Schottky structures is that they suffer from large
leakage current, larger than theoretically predicated, causing reliability
problems in devices operating for a long-time under high voltage modes
[4,5].
odes at room temperature alone does not provide detailed information
about conduction processes or the nature of barrier formation at the MS
interface [3,6]. The temperature dependence of the electrical charac­
teristics of the Schottky contacts not only provides information on the
charge transport process through the MS contacts, but also provides a
better understanding of the conduction mechanisms [7-19]. The current
transport mechanisms in GaN-based Schottky diodes have been inves­
tigated by many groups in the past. It was found that Frenkel-Poole
emission [20,21], tunneling current [22,23], and thermionic field
emission [24,25] are the most dominant current transport mechanisms
in GaN-based Schottky diodes. In their reports, it was concluded that
tunneling current dominates at lower temperatures, whereas Frenkel-
Poole emission dominates at temperature above 250 K [20]. There­
fore, the analysis of the I-V characteristics of Schottky barrier diodes

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: ali.hajjiah@ku.edu.kw (A. Hajjiah), badran.hussein23@gmail.com (H. Badran).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rinp.2020.103656
Received 30 July 2020; Received in revised form 24 November 2020; Accepted 25 November 2020
Available online 1 December 2020
2211-3797/© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
A. Hajjiah et al.
(SBD) based on thermionic emission (TE) theory alone often deviates
from its ideal case with an abnormal increase in ideality factor and a
decrease in barrier height with decreasing temperature [26-28].
There is an on-going interest in developing higher performance
metal contacts (ohmic and Schottky) on GaN based material structures
for optoelectronic device applications and high power/high frequency
devices [29-35]. Considerable efforts have already been made to study
Schottky contacts on n-type GaN using a number of metals e.g., Au
[36,37], Pt [37,38], Pd [37,38], Ni [37-39], Ti [37], and Cr [40]. From
those studies, it has been found that SBH (ϕb) depends on the metal work
function due to the ionic nature of GaN [41]. Published reports indicate
a variation in barrier height, depending on the type of metals used,
between 0.53 and 1.03 eV [39,42]. In all these reports, a dependency of
the barrier height and ideality factor on temperature was found. For
example, a strong temperature dependency for both barrier height and
ideality factor for Ni/n-GaN SBDs fabricated on a sapphire substrate was
reported by Yildirim et al. [43]. In their report, it was concluded that this
anomaly was due to either tunneling current [24], inhomogeneity of
barrier height [44], or leakage current due to the high threading dislo­
cation density [22]. Furthermore, a temperature dependency of barrier
height and ideality factor from I-V and C-V characteristics of Ni/n-GaN
SBD, grown directly on free-standing GaN substrate with low treading
dislocation, was investigated by Zhou et al. [45]. In their report, it was
found that the barrier height from the C-V measurements was almost
constant (1.16 eV), whereas a strong temperature dependency of barrier
height was found from the I-V measurements. They also found out that
the extracted ideality factors had values that are smaller than previously
reported for hetero-epitaxial GaN SBDs but still larger than unity at
room temperature (i.e. 1.15 at 298 K and 1.05 at 473 K). However, it is
well known that a weak temperature dependence for both barrier height
and ideality factor with a value close to one is predicted by the TE
theory. Hence, it shows that a dependency on a single TE model is not
adequate to describe the forward bias I–V characteristics in GaN
Schottky diodes and a unified understanding of the temperature de­
pendency of both barrier height and ideality factor is still lacking.
The concept of making solar cells from materials of one doping type
(n or p) through the creation of a metal/semiconductor Schottky barrier
was previously demonstrated [46,47] to make n-type GaInN/GaN
Schottky solar cells [48-50]. In these published works, a transparent
Schottky electrode was formed from an oxidized Ni/Au composite film.
The use of oxidized Ni/Au film was inspired by the fact that it forms an
ohmic contact to p-type GaN [51], and therefore, it would form a
Schottky junction with n-type GaN. In addition, other reports on GaInN
Schottky solar cells were also published in which pure metal films such
as Pt and Ni were used [52,53].
Our work is a continuation of the work done by K.T. Chern et al. [50]
where oxidized Ni/Au transparent Schottky electrodes were used in
GaInN/n-GaN Schottky solar cells to demonstrate the viability of such
cells. However, in their reports they did not study in detail the electrical
characteristics of such solar cells. In our study, we focus on the forward
bias electrical characteristics of both oxidized Ni/Au and pure Ni as the
top transparent Schottky electrode in the concept of n-GaN Schottky
solar cells by using different techniques in order to explain the observed
anomaly in η and ϕb.
Experimental setup
Schottky diode test structures were made using n-type GaN grown by
metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). The epitaxial layer
structure starts with a 25 nm thick unintentionally doped (UID) GaN
nucleation layer grown on a 2-inch diameter C-plane sapphire substrate
at low temperature. To achieve good structural quality, a 1 μm thick UID
GaN buffer layer was then grown at low temperature on top of the GaN
nucleation layer. Finally, a 1 μm thick silicon doped GaN test layer,
which serves as the device platform in contact with both the Schottky
and ohmic electrodes, was grown at high temperature. The net donor
2
Results in Physics 19 (2020) 103656
concentration (ND–NA) in the Si-doped GaN layer is 1 × 1017 cm− 3 at
room temperature. The surface preparation process starts with a warm
trichloroethylene treatment to ultrasonically degrease the surface of the
GaN test structure, followed by acetone and methanol dips for 5 min
each and blow drying with N2. Then, a boiling aqua-regia [HNO3:HCl =
1:3] dip for 10 min was followed in order to remove the surface oxide
from the degreased layer. Then, the sample was rinsed in deionized
water and blow dried with N2. Next, to form ohmic contacts, a 30 nm Ti /
400 nm Al metallic bilayer was deposited by electron-beam evaporation
and annealed at 600 ◦ C in a hydrogen (5%) / argon (95%) gas mixture
[54]. The Schottky electrode material was deposited by electron-beam
evaporation under high vacuum (2.5 × 10− 6 Torr) on top of the GaN
layer. The deposited Schottky material consists of 5 nm of Ni followed by
5 nm of Au or 5 nm of pure Ni metal. A standard photoresist lift-off
process was used to pattern the Schottky electrodes. The distance be­
tween the ohmic and Schottky contacts is approximately 0.5 μm. Test
structures with Ni/Au bilayers were annealed at 500 ◦ C for 10 min in air
to “oxidize” the Schottky electrodes. Finally, 50 nm Ni / 400 nm Au
contact pads were deposited on the Schottky electrodes for probe
testing. Forward bias I-V characteristics were measured in the temper­
ature range of 160–400 K and Schottky contact parameters such as
ideality factor and barrier height were extracted using the thermionic
emission model (TE) and plotted versus temperature. A schematic side-
view of the fully processed device is shown in Fig. 1a, with an optical
image of its metallized surface in Fig. 1b. Circular planar-style diode
structures were fabricated with (inner) Schottky electrode ranging from
250 to 500 μm in diameter and (outer) ohmic contacts of much larger
area. The area of the diode under investigation in our study is 3.14 ×
10− 4 cm2.
Results and discussion
Current-voltage-temperature (I-V-T) characteristics
The forward and reverse bias semi-log current density-voltage (J-V)
characteristics for oxidized Ni/Au and pure Ni Schottky contacts on n-
type GaN at different temperatures ranging from 160 to 400 K with steps
of 10 K are shown in Fig. 2 (a)-(d). The forward bias J-V characteristics
for both oxidized Ni/Au and Ni depict linear behavior over three de­
cades of current magnitude with a shift toward higher voltage at lower
temperatures. This behavior is in agreement with current transport by
thermionic emission. Also, at lower temperature, the forward bias J-V
curves exhibit two linear regions which is an indication of the existence
of other mechanisms besides pure thermionic emission [55]. The upper
part (i.e. the high voltage region) of the forward bias semi-logarithmic J-
V characteristics for both oxidized Ni/Au and Ni show deviation from
linearity due to the effect of series resistance at high current. On the
other hand, the reverse bias semi-log J-V characteristics for both
Schottky electrode materials has been observed to decrease with
decreasing temperature. At V = 0 V, a clear dependency on temperature
can be seen in the reverse bias semi-log J-V characteristics for Ni. The
origin of leakage current is probably due to deep level impurities or edge
leakage currents. For the oxidized Ni/Au at T = 160 K, the reverse bias
current density (JR) is around 2.18 × 10− 6 A/cm2 at − 5 V and forward
bias current density (JF) greater than 0.76 A/cm2 at + 1 V whereas at T
= 400 K, the reverse bias current density (JR) is around 3.25 × 10− 5 A/
cm2 at − 5 V and forward bias current density (JF) is 4.0 A/cm2 at + 1 V.
For the Ni case at T = 160 K, the reverse bias current density (JR) is 5.23
× 10− 3 A/cm2 at − 5 V and the forward bias current density (JF) is 18.71
A/cm2 at + 1 V whereas at T = 400 K, the reverse bias current density
(JR) is around 3.28 × 10− 3 A/cm2 at − 5 V and forward bias current
density (JF) greater than 22.36 A/cm2 at + 1 V. Furthermore, the
rectification ratio (RR) for both diodes is defined as the ratio of the
forward-biased current density to the reverse-biased current density (JF/
JR). For the oxidized Ni/Au case at T = 160 K, the RR is 1.87 × 10+7
whereas at T = 400 K, the RR is 3.96 × 10+7 at ± 1 V. On the other hand,
A. Hajjiah et al. Results in Physics 19 (2020) 103656

Fig. 1. (a) Schematic cross-section of the Schottky test structure and (b) Nomarski optical image of the surface.

Fig. 2. (a) and (c) represent the forward and reverse bias semi-logarithmic J-V characteristics for oxidized Ni/Au Schottky contact on n-GaN, respectively. (b) and
(d) represent the forward and reverse bias semi-logarithmic J-V characteristics for pure Ni Schottky contact on n-GaN, respectively. Both measurements are con­
ducted in the temperature range of 160–400 K.

for the pure Ni case at T = 160 K, the RR is 1.24 × 10+8 whereas at T =
400 K, the RR is 1.18 × 10+5 at ± 1 V. Therefore, these Schottky diodes
exhibit good rectifying behavior.
Analysis of (I-V-T) using thermionic emission (TE)
Current flow through a Schottky contact can be described by the
well-known thermionic emission theory, which leads to the following I-
V relationship assuming low voltages [55]:

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A. Hajjiah et al. Results in Physics 19 (2020) 103656

( )[ ( )]
qV qV height decreases with decreasing temperature. One explanation for this
I = Is exp 1 − exp − (1a)
ηkT kT anomaly is that since current transport across the MS interface is a
temperature activated process, electrons at low temperature are able to
When considering V > 3kT/q, Eq. (1a) may be approximated to:
overcome only lower barriers, resulting in current flowing through
( )
qV patches of lower Schottky barrier height to take over current transport,
I = Is exp (1b) hence achieving a larger ideality factor [58-61]. As the temperature
ηkT
increases, more electrons have sufficient energy to surmount higher
where I is the measured current (A), V is the applied voltage (V), q is the barriers. This results in an increase in the dominant barrier height with
electron charge (C), η is the ideality factor of the diode, which describes temperature and bias voltage [39,42]. The ideality factor in Fig. 3 ranges
the deviation from pure TE behavior, k is Boltzmann’s constant (J/K), T from 1.24 at 160 K to 1.03 at 400 K for Ni and 1.532 at 160 K to 1.03 at
is the absolute temperature (K), and Is is the saturation current (A) given 400 K for oxidized Ni/Au, whereas the zero-bias barrier height ranges
by [55,56]: from 0.439 eV at 160 K to 0.905 eV at 400 K for Ni and 0.449 eV at 160 K
( qϕ ) to 1.205 eV at 400 K for oxidized Ni/Au. This trend in barrier height has
IS = AA* T 2 exp − b0
(2) been observed by others [42] for Schottky contacts deposited on GaN.
kT
The ideal TE theory expects the SBH variation to have dependency only
where A is the Schottky contact area (cm2), A* is the effective on the band gap variation with temperature [62], and therefore, the
Richardson constant (A/cm2K2) (26.4 A cm− 2K− 2 for n-GaN) [57] and zero-bias barrier height, for an ideal Schottky diode, should increase
ϕb0 is the zero-bias barrier height (V). Rearranging Eq. (2), an expres­ with decreasing temperature [63-65].
sion for the zero-bias barrier height can be written as: Furthermore, Table 1 represents the experimentally extracted values
( * 2) of Is, ϕb0, η, ηT, and ηϕb0 from the forward bias ln(I)-V in the temperature
ϕb0 =
kT
ln
AA T
(3) range of 160–400 K for both oxidized Ni/Au and pure Ni on n-type GaN
q Is Schottky diode. As shown in the table, the value of Is, ϕb0 and η show
strong dependency on temperature and they range from 9.35 × 10− 09 A/
In order to determine the zero-bias barrier height from I-V mea­
cm2, 0.439 eV and 1.237 (at T = 160 K) to 1.54 × 10− 05 A/cm2, 0.905 eV
surements, we take the natural log of both sides of Eq. (1b) to get Eq.
and 1.032 (at T = 400 K) for Ni-only and from 4.35 × 10− 09 A/cm2,
(4).
0.449 eV and 1.532 (at T = 160 K) to 2.58 × 10− 09 A/cm2, 1.205 eV and
q 1.027 (at T = 400 K) for oxidized Ni/Au respectively.
ln(I) = ln(Is ) + V (4)
ηkT
Eq. (4) is linear on a semi-logarithmic I-V plot where the slope and y- The effect of temperature on current transport mechanisms
intercept are proportional to the ideality factor and the saturation cur­
rent, respectively. This means that the saturation current can be It is observed in our analysis that the ideality factor η is higher than
extrapolated from the straight-line intercept of ln(I) at V = 0 V in Fig. 2 unity indicating that thermionic emission (TE) is not the only current
with values ranging from 9.35 × 10− 09 A/cm2 and 4.35 × 10− 09 A/cm2 transport mechanism. Therefore, in order to explain the observed vari­
at 160 K to 1.54 × 10− 05 A/cm2 and 2.58 × 10− 09 A/cm2 at 400 K for the ation of ideality factor and zero-bias barrier height with temperature (i.
Ni and oxidized Ni/Au cases, respectively. As for the ideality factor, it e. To effect), conduction/transport current mechanisms such as therm­
can be determined from the slope of the forward bias semi-logarithmic I- ionic field emission (TFE), field emission (FE), and tunneling via inter­
V curve. An expression can also be derived for the ideality factor by face states or dislocations should be considered. In addition, the
taking the derivative with respect to voltage of Eq. (4) to get the simultaneous contribution from two or more of these mechanisms may
following: also be possible at certain temperatures and applied voltage ranges.
( ) Now, if we assume that the current transport is controlled by the TFE
η=
q dV
(5) process, then Eq. (1a) is no longer valid [66]. In this case, the rela­
kT d[ln(I)] tionship between current and voltage can be expressed as [67,68]:
The zero-bias barrier height and ideality factor were extracted from ( )
qV
the forward bias portions of the J-V curves (i.e., linear regions between I = Is exp (6)
E0
+ 0.4 and + 0.8 V) and are plotted versus temperature for both oxidized
Ni/Au and Ni Schottky electrodes in Fig. 3(a) and (b), respectively. with
From the figure, it can be seen that there is, in fact, a strong dependency ( )
of both parameters (ϕb0 and η) on temperature. Specifically, it is E0 = E00 coth
E00
= ηkT (7)
observed that the ideality factor increases while the zero-bias barrier kT

Fig. 3. Variation of zero-bias barrier height and ideality factor as a function of temperature for (a) oxidized Ni/Au and (b) Ni on n-type GaN Schottky diodes.

4
A. Hajjiah et al. Results in Physics 19 (2020) 103656

Table 1
Experimentally extracted values of Is @ V = 0 V, ϕb0, η, ηT, and ηϕb0 from the forward bias ln(I)-V in the temperature range of 160–400 K for both oxidized Ni/Au and
pure Ni on n-type GaN Schottky diode.
T (K) Ni-only Oxidized Ni-Au

Is (A) Js (A/cm2) ϕb0 (eV) η ηT (K) ηϕb0 (eV) Is (A) Js (A/cm2) ϕb0 (eV) η ηT (K) ηϕb0 (eV)
160 2.94E-12 9.35E-09 0.439 1.237 197.951 0.543 1.37E-12 4.35E-09 0.449 1.532 245.12 0.688
170 3.09E-12 9.83E-09 0.467 1.208 205.392 0.565 1.52E-12 4.83E-09 0.478 1.423 241.876 0.680
180 5.52E-12 1.76E-08 0.488 1.190 214.276 0.580 4.91E-12 1.56E-08 0.489 1.304 234.648 0.638
190 1.82E-12 5.8E-09 0.535 1.165 221.265 0.623 1.37E-12 4.35E-09 0.539 1.274 242.022 0.687
200 2.58E-12 8.22E-09 0.558 1.149 229.812 0.642 1.01E-12 3.22E-09 0.575 1.222 244.480 0.702
210 9.62E-13 3.06E-09 0.606 1.142 239.887 0.692 1.42E-12 4.51E-09 0.599 1.197 251.368 0.717
220 9.11E-13 2.90E-09 0.638 1.126 247.671 0.718 2.94E-12 9.35E-09 0.615 1.146 252.208 0.706
230 3.64E-12 1.16E-08 0.641 1.124 258.488 0.720 1.57E-12 5.00E-09 0.658 1.126 258.888 0.740
240 1.47E-12 4.67E-09 0.689 1.100 263.897 0.758 2.58E-12 8.22E-09 0.678 1.131 271.392 0.766
250 3.04E-12 9.67E-09 0.704 1.099 274.838 0.774 7.19E-12 2.29E-08 0.686 1.118 279.500 0.766
260 5.06E-12 1.61E-08 0.723 1.093 284.058 0.789 1.01E-12 3.22E-09 0.759 1.104 286.936 0.837
270 9.62E-13 3.06E-09 0.791 1.080 291.700 0.854 5.06E-13 1.61E-09 0.806 1.096 295.920 0.883
280 3.49E-12 1.11E-08 0.791 1.072 300.231 0.848 4.51E-12 1.43E-08 0.785 1.097 307.160 0.861
290 1.21E-12 3.87E-09 0.847 1.072 310.767 0.908 3.09E-12 9.83E-09 0.824 1.106 320.624 0.911
300 2.23E-12 7.09E-09 0.862 1.063 318.970 0.917 5.06E-13 1.61E-09 0.901 1.090 327.000 0.982
310 2.73E-12 8.70E-09 0.887 1.062 329.291 0.943 4.05E-12 1.29E-08 0.877 1.070 331.700 0.938
320 8.91E-12 2.84E-08 0.885 1.058 338.516 0.936 4.81E-12 1.53E-08 0.902 1.078 344.960 0.973
330 2.73E-11 8.70E-08 0.883 1.058 349.110 0.934 9.62E-13 3.06E-09 0.978 1.071 353.265 1.047
340 5.61E-11 1.79E-07 0.890 1.058 359.607 0.942 9.11E-13 2.90E-09 1.011 1.064 361.760 1.076
350 1.28E-10 4.07E-07 0.893 1.061 371.349 0.948 2.48E-12 7.90E-09 1.012 1.054 368.900 1.067
360 2.77E-10 8.82E-07 0.897 1.051 378.497 0.943 4.56E-12 1.45E-08 1.024 1.051 378.180 1.076
370 5.77E-10 1.84E-06 0.900 1.043 386.054 0.939 1.16E-12 3.71E-09 1.098 1.058 391.571 1.162
380 1.20E-09 3.82E-06 0.902 1.034 392.985 0.933 4.56E-12 1.45E-08 1.084 1.035 393.300 1.122
390 2.41E-09 7.68E-06 0.904 1.047 408.340 0.946 1.21E-12 3.87E-09 1.159 1.031 401.895 1.195
400 4.85E-09 1.54E-05 0.905 1.032 412.844 0.934 8.10E-13 2.58E-09 1.205 1.027 410.720 1.237

where E0 is the tunneling current parameter, E00 is the characteristic

tunneling energy. This characteristic tunneling energy relates the
transmission probability of the carrier through the barrier and is given as
[55,67]:
( )1/2
h ND
E00 = (8)
4π m*e εs

where h is the Planck constant (h = 6.626 × 10− 34 Jsec). In the case of n-

type GaN with a carrier concentration equal to 1 × 1017cm− 3, an elec­
tron effective mass me* = 0.2m0 where m0 is the electron rest mass, and a
semiconductor dielectric constant of εs = 8.9ε0, it is found that the
characteristic energy E00 using Eq. (8) is 4.4 meV. Based on [69], a
rough criterion can be given to identify the contribution of the different
current transport mechanisms (i.e. FE, TFE, and TE) by comparing the
thermal energy kT with the characteristic tunneling energy E00. If E00/
kT > 1, then FE (or tunneling) dominates, however, if E00/kT < 1, then
TE dominates and the original Schottky barrier behavior prevails
without tunneling, and finally if E00/kT ≈ 1, then TFE is the main carrier
transport mechanism in Schottky contacts.
The temperature dependent ideality factor values were analyzed by
plotting E0 vs. kT/q in Fig. 4 where the values of E0 were determined
from Eq. (7). A least square-fit to the data results in a y-intercept which
yields the value of E0 for the Schottky diode under study. Fig. 4 shows a
plot of E0 vs. kT/q for both oxidized Ni/Au (blue circles) and Ni (red
crosses) with their least square-fit on the measured data. Also, the figure
shows the theoretical calculated E0 (purple solid line) when the ideality
factor is equal to 1. It was found that the experimental E0 values ob­
tained from the ηkT/q vs. kT/q plot for both oxidized Ni/Au and Ni are
5.2 meV and 4.1 meV, respectively. For the oxidized Ni/Au, this is a
good fit down to a temperature of 180 K and deviates below this tem­
perature. If the data below kT/q = 0.02 eV is considered in the fit, an
even higher characteristic energy will be obtained from the plot, which
confirms that TFE/FE mechanisms are possible only below 200 K.
This anomalous temperature dependence of the ideality factor in
Schottky diodes has been referred to as the “To effect” [55,60,70,71]
because the variation of the ideality factor with temperature follows the
relationship [72,73]
Fig. 4. Plot of E0 vs. kT/q using Eq. (7) and assuming TFE for both oxidized Ni/
Au and Ni on n-type GaN material. The slight curvature at low temperature
indicates the possibility of a higher characteristic energy than predicted by
theory and estimated by Eq. (7) for the oxidized Ni/Au case. The fit was made
for the range of (0.021–0.035 eV) (yellow triangles) for oxidized Ni/Au while it
was made for the full data series for Ni. (For interpretation of the references to
colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of
this article.)
To
η = 1+ (9)
T
where To is constant and independent of temperature. It was shown that
the To effect may be connected to either lateral inhomogeneity of the
SBH or to additional recombination and tunneling current components
[60,74-76]. To demonstrate the To effect, a plot of ηT vs. T is presented in
Fig. 5, where a straight line can be observed which does not extrapolate
through the origin. From Fig. 5(a) and (b), the slope is 0.77 and the
value of To is 96.9 K for oxidized Ni/Au, whereas a slope of 0.91 with a
To value of 47.8 K is found for the Ni case. The sharp increase in ideality
factor with decreasing temperature for oxidized Ni/Au (i.e. Fig. 5(a))
indicates the presence of thermionic field emission (TFE) at low tem­
peratures [77]. As a result, the graph of To as a function of temperature

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A. Hajjiah et al.
Fig. 5. Experimental values of ideality factor obtained from Fig. 2 using Eq. (5) (symbols) with the least-square fit method (dotted line) to demonstrate the To effect
for both (a) oxidized Ni/Au where To = 96.9 K and (b) Ni where To = 47.8 K.
in Fig. 5(a) fails to yield a straight line [78]. The deviation from linearity
for oxidized Ni/Au can also be explained in terms of SBH in­
homogeneity. Regions with low-SBHs dominate the junction current as
the temperature is decreased [60,74-76]. However, for the Ni SBD case,
the graph of To in Fig. 5(b) is a straight line over the whole investigated
temperature interval resulting from the gradual increase of the ideality
factor with decreasing temperature.
To further explain the deviation in linearity in the To effect plot for
the oxidized Ni/Au, a linear correlation between the zero-bias barrier
height and ideality factor at different temperatures was found using
Tung’s theoretical approach [79,80] as shown in Fig. 6. The dotted lines
in the figure are least-squares fits to the experimental data. Extrapola­
tion of these linear fits gives homogeneous barrier heights (ϕhom) at an
ideality factor of 1. It is obvious that there are two distinct regions for
the oxidized Ni/Au SBD: one region representing the low temperature
range with ϕhom_1(η = 1) = 1.02 eV and another region representing the
high temperature range with ϕhom_2(η = 1) = 1.23 eV. On the other hand,
the homogeneous barrier height for Ni is ϕhom(η = 1) = 0.87 eV
throughout the whole temperature range.
Another explanation by Werner and Guttler [3,62] for the To effect
deviation (i.e. the increase in ideality factor and decrease in SBH at low
temperature) states that it may be attributable to inhomogeneity in the
barrier at the interface [81]. In their seminal work, Werner and Guttler
[3,62] proposed a Gaussian distribution of SBH values over the MS
contact area with mean barrier height (ϕb0-mean) and standard deviation
(σ s), a measure of the barrier inhomogeneity. Such a Gaussian
Fig. 6. Zero-bias barrier height versus ideality factor for both oxidized Ni/Au
and Ni SBDs on n-type GaN at different temperatures.
6
Results in Physics 19 (2020) 103656
distribution of barrier heights produces an expression for the apparent
barrier height (ϕb0-ap) which is the quantity extracted from experimental
I-V curves [3,82-85], Eq. (10).
qσ2s
ϕb0 ap = ϕb0− mean (T = 0 K) − (10)
2kT
The temperature dependence of σ s is usually small and negligible [1].
Werner-Guttler’s potential fluctuation model [3] has also been invoked
to explain the observed variation of ideality factor with temperature as
given by:
[ ]
1 qρ
− 1 = − ρ2 + 3 (11)
ηap 2kT
where ηap is the apparent ideality factor extracted from experimental I-V
curves. Furthermore, a voltage-independent ideality factor requires a
linear increase in ϕb (V, T) with bias. This is only possible if the mean
SBH ϕb as well as the square of the standard deviation σ2 vary linearly
with bias in accordance with [3,41,86]:
Δϕb (V, T) = ϕb (V, T) − ϕb (0, T) = ρ2 V (12)
Δσ2 (V) = σ 2 (V) − σ2 (0) = ρ3 V (13)
where ρ2 and ρ3 from Eq. (12) and Eq. (13) are the voltage coefficients
of the mean SBH and standard deviation, respectively. They depict the
voltage deformation of the barrier height distribution. In other words,
the voltage dependencies of the mean SBH and the barrier distribution
widths are given by coefficients ρ2 and ρ3, respectively. The experi­
mental ϕb0-ap vs. q/2kT and ηap vs. q/2kT plots for both oxidized Ni/Au
and Ni are shown in Fig. 7 (a) and (b), respectively. The plots of ϕb0_ap vs.
q/2kT for both Schottky electrode materials show straight lines with
intercepts on the ordinate determining zero mean barrier heights at T =
0 K and slopes giving the standard deviations σ s. For oxidized Ni/Au, the
corresponding values are 1.45 eV and 141 mV for ϕb0-mean at T = 0 K and
σ s respectively, whereas the corresponding values for Ni are 0.92 eV and
69.3 mV for ϕb0-mean at T = 0 K and σ s, respectively. The observed
standard deviation of the mean barrier height is 9.7% for oxidized Ni/Au
and 7.5% for the Ni case. The lower standard deviation indicates more
homogeneous barrier height for the Ni SBD compared to the oxidized
Ni/Au case. Fig. 7 also shows the plot of experimental ideality factor
versus q/2kT which shows a linear correlation with ρ2 being the inter­
cept and ρ3 being the slope. For oxidized Ni/Au, the values obtained for
ρ2 and ρ3 are − 0.179 V and − 0.013 V respectively, whereas the values
for Ni are − 0.069 V and − 0.007 V for ρ2 and ρ3 respectively.
Moreover, a plot of 1/η vs. 1000/T, shown in Fig. 8, has been used to
further investigate the current transport mechanism(s) for both oxidized
A. Hajjiah et al. Results in Physics 19 (2020) 103656

Ni/Au and Ni on n-type GaN material. This plot usually provides a

credible check of whether the carrier transport mechanism is based on
TFE or TE since the values of 1/η are very sensitive to changes near
unity. Therefore, Eq. (7) can be written as [87,88]:
( )
1 kT(1 − β)
= (14)
η qE0

where β is the bias dependence of the barrier height. The solid lines in
Fig. 8 are acquired by fitting Eq. (7) to the experimental values of the
ideality factor presented for different values of the characteristic energy
E00 with β = 0. The experimentally obtained values of the ideality factor
for both oxidized Ni/Au and Ni are superimposed on these plots to
approximately determine the values of E00. Fig. 8, shows an agreement
between the experimental temperature dependence of the ideality factor
and the curve representing E00 = 12 meV for the Ni case over the whole
temperature range of 160–400 K. Here the characteristic value from
Fig. 8 is much larger than the theoretical characteristic energy calcu­
lated by Eq. (8) (E00 = 4.4 meV). However, for the oxidized Ni/Au case
in Fig. 8, one can see an increase in the characteristic energy values as
temperature decreases, see Table 2.
For the Ni SBD, E00/kT is below 1 throughout the whole temperature
range of 160–400 K. This indicates that TE is the only possible current
transport mechanism, see Table 3. On the other hand, looking at the
oxidized Ni/Au sample, it can be seen that E00/kT > 1 for temperatures
below T = 170 K which indicates that the FE (or tunneling) transport
mechanism dominates, whereas E00/kT ≈ 1 for temperatures ranging
between 180 and 210 K (TFE dominates), and finally E00/kT < 1 for

Table 2
Temperature ranges and the corresponding calculated E00 values after super­
Fig. 7. Plots of zero bias barrier height and ideality factor versus q/2kT and imposing experimentally obtained values of the ideality factor for oxidized Ni/
their linear fits for both oxidized Ni/Au (a) and Ni Schottky contacts (b) on n- Au on n-type GaN.
type GaN. Temperature range (K) 160–170 180–210 220–370 380–400
Characteristic Energy E00 17 15 13 11
(meV)

Fig. 8. Theoretical temperature dependence of the ideality factor for the case when the current transport mechanism is dominated by TFE with characteristic energy
values E00 according to Eq. (14) (Solid lines). The experimentally obtained values of the ideality factor for both oxidized Ni/Au and Ni are superimposed on the
theoretical curves.

7
A. Hajjiah et al. Results in Physics 19 (2020) 103656

Table 3 not adequate to describe the forward bias I–V characteristics in GaN
E00/kT for both Ni and oxidized Ni/Au in the temperature range of 160–400 K. Schottky diodes.
The calculated E00 values after superimposing the experimentally obtained
values of the ideality factor are extracted from Fig. 8. CRediT authorship contribution statement
T (K) E00/kT (Ni) E00/kT (Oxidized Ni/Au)

160 0.870 1.233 Ali Hajjiah: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis,

170 0.819 1.160 Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing, Supervision. Asmaa
180 0.773 0.967 Alkhabbaz: Formal analysis, Writing - original draft. Hussein Badran:
190 0.733 0.916
Writing - original draft. Ivan Gordon: Writing - review & editing.
200 0.696 0.870
210 0.663 0.829
220 0.633 0.686 Declaration of Competing Interest
230 0.605 0.656
240 0.580 0.629
250 0.557 0.603 The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
260 0.535 0.580 interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
270 0.516 0.559 the work reported in this paper.
280 0.497 0.539
290 0.480 0.520
300 0.464 0.503 Acknowledgments
310 0.449 0.487
320 0.435 0.471 The authors gratefully acknowledge the technical support of Dr. Lou
330 0.422 0.457
Guido’s lab at Virginia Tech (USA) for providing the fabricated samples
340 0.409 0.444
350 0.398 0.431 in this work. Also, special thanks to K.T. Chern et al. for their support in
360 0.387 0.419 this work.
370 0.376 0.408
380 0.366 0.336
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