Solid-State Electronics, 1972, Vol. 15, PP. 783-787. Pergamon Press.

Printed in Great Britain

CURRENT TRANSPORT IN METAL

SEMICONDUCTOR CONTACTS -
A UNIFIED APPROACH*
S. J. FONASH
The Pennsylvania State University, Department of Engineering Science, University Park,
Pennsylvania 16802, U.S.A.

(Received IO November 197 1;in revisedform 27 December 197 1)

Abstract-A unified approach to current transport at metal-semiconductor junctions is employed

which includes thermionic emission, thermionic-field emission, and field emission. Rather than the
many expressions for the current density which are available in the literature with their various ranges
of validity, a single expression of general validity is presented which allows thel-V characteristics of a
junction to be computed from a relatively simple double integration. The approach is valid for arbi-
trary doping and barrier shape for a wide range of temperatures for the general case of a many valley
semiconductor. It may be easily extended toptype materials.
The generalized WKB-type of approximation used in the analysis allows the current density to be
expressed in terms of the product of a transmission probability and a supply function. The supply
function is such that, for a given valley, there is a Richardson constant applicable to all transport
processes.

NOTATION analysis, the current density present when any or

T temperature CK) all of these processes are operative can be expres-
Ji current density contributed by ith valley sed in the same final form: in terms of a transmission
(A/m’) probability and a supply function. Rather than the
electron charge (C)
Plank’s constant divided by 2n(J-set) many expressions which are available in the
total energy, measured from band edge literature with their various conditions of validity
(J) [I-IO], a single expression of general validity is
k,. kg,, k, components of wavevector (m-l) developed which is amenable to relatively simple
K,, 4,. and K, numerical computation of I-Vcharacteristics.
P Fermi energy (J)
V potential energy (J) The investigations of Stratton[9] and Hartman
mL1 mT effective masses (kg) [lo] were among the first to formulate the current
llrR barrier maximum (J) in terms of the product of a transmission probability
k Boltzmann’s constant (J/“K) and a supply function. However, theses analyses
Ni supply function for i”’ valley (A/m,)
assumed spherical energy surfaces. Crowell[ 1,2]
and Crowell and Rideout[3.4] applied such a
1. INTRODUCTION
formulation to the case of ellipsoidal energy sur-
THE of this paper is to present a unified
PURPOSE
faces in the semiconductor. Their analysis used the
approach to electron transport at metal-semi- Boltzmann approximation and hence is of limited
conductor junctions; an approach which is valid applicability[2-41. Other workers[5,6] have used
over a wide temperature range for the general case Fermi-Dirac statistics and ellipsoidal energy
of a many valley semiconductor with arbitrary surfaces in their treatments of current transport at
doping and barrier shape. The processes of ther- metal-semiconductor junctions, but have used the
mionic emission, thermionic-field emission, and WKB approximation for the transmission proba-
field emission are all included. As a result of this bility-an approximation which is not valid for
electrons crossing the junction with energies near
*Supported in part by the National Science Foundation the barrier maximum. It should also be noted that
under Contract No. GK-5666. the expansion procedure used in many of these
783
784 S. .I. FONASH

latter analyses results in general expressions for

the current density (cf. equation (31). Ref. [5])
which are more involved than the corresponding
expressions obtained in this analysis which does
not employ such procedures.
All of the above mentioned investigations,
including the one presented here, use some
approximation for the transmission probability.
The exception is a study limited to field emission _k--_
at T = 0°K [7]. Exact solutions to the Schroedinger
equation for a parabolic potential were used in that
analysis and energy surfaces in the semiconductor Fig. I. Potential energy diagram for a metal-semicon-
ductor contact in the case of forward bias. nomenclature
centered at 1’ were assumed. However, the
is discussed in the text.
expressions which resulted, even with the assump-
tion of T = O”K, are extremely complex[S] and
become even more so when extended to the case defined by
of a many-valley semiconductor. Thus, the analysis
of this paper, while it does employ a generalized
WKB approximation, permits a unified approach
to current transport at metal-semiconductor
junctions which is of general validity and relative where K, is along the major axis ni. If the following
simplicity. transformation is used for the ith minimum [2, s]

2. ANALYSIS k.r = K, cos 0, t K, sin Hi

In terms of the transmission probability P. the
contribution to the total current density by the k, = K,, (4)
i”’ valley of a semiconductor may be written as[5,7]
k, = - K, sin Hii K; COS Hi

then equation (3) may be written as

assuming the conditions of conservation of energy

(5)
and transverse momentum. Hence, the integration
in reciprocal space is over the shadow of the
energy surface ET on the plane of the contact [5]. where. following the notation of Ref. [5].
The quantities k, and k, lie in the plane of this
shadow and J, is normal to it. The factor F is SiIlH,COS0i
@ = (ml.-mT)
defined by m.rcos20i+m,,sinz0,

_____ I - I tn, = t71,,nI.I.(mr Co? 0i + m,, sin” 0{)-’

FZ (2)
1+ecE,--lr1/L7 1+ec”r+V-~,/nl’
and
The Fermi energy p and the energy El are both
measured from the band edge of the i”’ valley in the m2 E mt.m,(m,, co2 Bi+ m7’sin2 0,)-I.
semiconductor as shown in Fig. 1. Fermi-Dirac
statistics are used throughout this analysis and Here I& is parallel to il,, the normal to the plane of
thermionic emission, thermally assisted field the junction; k, and k, are perpendicular to tz,
emission, and field emission are included in and lie in the plane of the shadow of the surface
equation (1). ET as shown in Fig. 2. The angle 19~is defined by
It is assumed that the energy surfaces in the
semiconductor near the i”’ minimum are ellipsoids cos Bi = &.A, (6)
 METAL-SEMICONDUCTOR CONTACTS 785

and the shadow of the energy surface ET on the Then $,, satisfies
plane of the junction is obtained from

VkE,.fit = 0. 2’; %+ V(x)rclss = E,$,, (11)

(7) 1

This latter condition results in where

E, = I$-$ [z+ (--&$)k2]. (12)

(curve 2 of Fig. 2) defining the shadow ofE, and It will be convenient later to write E, as
thus the region of integration over k, and k, in
equation (1) for a given Ep E,= ET-E’ (13)
with

E’=y[%(--&$)k;]. (14)

The quantity E’ is a measure of the energy associ-

Fig. 2. Depicted on the plane of the contact are the cross
section for k, = 0 of the ellipsoid of energy ET, curve 1;
the cross section of the shadow of ET on this plane, curve
2; and equation (14) for a given value of E’, curve 3.
The potential barrier at the surface of the semi-
conductor V(X) has a maximum I/J~at some point
x, and is such that T/ -+ 0 as x + m as may be
seen in Fig. 1. If the transformation of equation
(4) is used on the spatial coordinates, the wave
function & of the electron in the semiconductor
must satisfy[5]
+ v’h = ET& (9)
ated with the transverse motion of the electron and
E, is a measure of the energy associated with the
motion of the electron normal to the barrier[2].
A plot of constant E’ is shown as curve 3 in Fig. 2.
Curve 1 is simply the cross section of the surface
ET in the k, = 0 plane. Obviously E’ is limited by
0 G E’ =GET.
If a generalized WKB-type of approximation
is used to solve equation (11) [ 111, the transmission
probability P appearing in equation (1) may be
expressed as [5, 1 l]
P = [ 1 + e-“I-’ (15)
where
_Z x2 {2m,[E,- V(x)]}“*dx. (16)
h I II
This approach has been used previously in the
literature[4] and it is quite advantageous since it
allows P, the transmission probability, to include
the effects of reflection for those electrons passing
over the barrier and tunneling for those electrons
with insufficient energy to pass over the barrier.
That is, equation (15) and (16) are valid for E, <
@I~and E, 3 I,IJ~ [l 11.The turning points x1 and xq
are obtained from the condition that they satisfy

As shown in Ref. [5], it is advantageous to write V(x) = E,. (17)

the solution to this equation as
They are imaginary for E, > I,&. It is obvious from
$J~ = $,,(x)e-Wweib’ eikz (10) equation (15), (16), and (17) that
786 S. J. FONASH

p = P(E,,mJ (18) Interchanging the order of integration allows

equation (23) to be written as
only [2].
In order to fully exploit equation (18), it is
J, = (Af/k2) j,rP(E,, m,) dE, JEy F(ET)dEr (25)
necessary to note that an element dk,dk, of the
area defined by curve 2 in Fig. 2 may be written as
which integrates to

dk, dk, = g. (19)

J, = ,,” P(E,> m,)Ni(E,) dE, (26)

The quantity dl is an element of length on a

where
constant E’ curve (such as curve 3 of Fig. 2) and
is given by
N,(E,) = (AfT/k)[ln (1 + exp- (E,- p)lkT)

-In(l+exp-(E,-F+V)/~T)]. (27)
dl= [l+(z)t]“‘dk,. (20)
Thus electron transport across a metal-semi-
The quantity VE’ is a two-dimensional gradient conductor interface as formulated in equation ( 1) -
obtained from equation (14). Using equations (13), including thermionic emission, thermally assisted
(14) and (I 8)-(20) allows equation (1) to be written field emission, and field emission-has been
as completely reduced in equation (26) to a one
dimensional problem. The product Nj(E,) dE,
represents the net flux density of electrons with
energies associated with the motion normal to the
junction which are between E, and E,+ dE,.
For these electrons the transmission probability
depends only on E, and the mass m, according to
xdk, (21) the approximation of equation (I 5).
The quantity N,(E,), which is commonly re-
where
ferred to as a supply function[ 121, reduces to
k ym = (2m,E’)1’2/h. (22)
N,(E,) = (ATT/k)e iwre-“J’!’
t , _ ,-,‘,W) (28)
Equation (21) may be integrated. The result,
using equation (I 3), is if the Boltzmann approximation is made as may
be seen from equation (27). The expression which
results from using equation (28) in equation (26)
has been obtained and used previously in the
ET literature[2-41; however, it has been realized that
X
I 0
P(E,, m,) dE,. (23) such an expression-based
statistics-is of limited
on Maxwell-Boltzmann
applicability in reverse
By noting the definition of the tunneling effective bias and cannot be applied to degenerate semi-
mass m, for the ith valley, the Richardson constant conductors[2,3]. Equation (26) together with
AT of Ref. [l] may be written as equation (27) does not sufferfrom these limitations.
These equations represent a more general state-
ment of greater applicability. They have not
(24) previously been obtained in the literature.

where k is Boltzmann’s constant. Thus,AT depends 3. CONCLUSIONS

on the same component of the effective mass Equations (26) and (27) provide a unified
tensor as the transmission probability for the ith approach to electron transport across a metal-
valley. semiconductor interface. These equations, which
 METAL-SEMICONDUCTOR
obviously could be extended to the case of p-type
material, are valid if the electron transfer process
is thermionic emission, thermionic-field emission,
field emission, or a combination. The current
density for all these processes has been shown to
depend on the product of a transmission probability
P(E,, m,) and a supply function A/,(,!?,). The final
formulation, since the approximation of equation
(15) has been used, is completely one dimensional.
From the supply function N,(E,), it can be seen
that there is a Richardson constant for a given
valley which is applicable to all processes. Pre-
viously, AT had been shown to be the same for
thermionic and thermionic-field emission in the
limit that Maxwell-Boltzmann statistics were
applicable[2]. No such limitation exists for
equations (26) and (27).
Equations (26) and (27) not only provide a
unified approach to the electron transfer process
at metal-semiconductor junctions valid for
arbitrary doping and barrier shape, but from the
point of view of computation they allow the Z-V
characteristic to be evaluated for any general
junction configuration from a relatively simple
double integration. This ease of computation has
been achieved without recourse to the expansion
CONTACTS 787
procedures of Ref. [5] or to the use of the Boltz-
mann approximation[2-41. It should also be noted
that the approach presented here allows the
normalization procedure of Crowell and Rideout
[3.4], developed for thermionic emission and
thermionic field emission, to be extended to field
emission.
REFERENCES
1. C. Crowell, So/i&r. Electron. 8,395 (1965).
2. C. R. Crowell, Solid-St. Electron. l&55 (1969).
3. C. R. Crowell and V. L. Rideout, Solid-St. Electron.
12,89(1969).
4. V. L. Rideout and C. R. Crowell, Solid-St. Electron.
13,993 (1970).
5. R. Stratton and F. A. Padovani, Phys. Rev. 175,
1072 (1968).
6. R. Stratton, in Tunnelling Phenomena in Solids
(edited by E. Burstein and S. Lundquist), Chapter 8,
Plenum Press, New York (I 969).
7. J. Conley, C. Duke, G. Mahan, and J. Tiemann,
Phys. Rev. 150,466 (1966).
8. J. Conley and G. Mahan, Phys. Rev. 161.68 I (1967).
9. R. Stratton,J. phys. Chem. Solids 23, I I77 (1962).
10. T. E. Hartman,J. appl. Phys. 35,3283 (1964).
II. S. Miller and R. Good, Phys. Rev. 91, 174, (I 953).
12. R. H. Good, Jr. and E. W. Muller, in Handbuch der
Physik (edited by S. Flugge) Vol. 2 1,p. 176, Springer,
Berlin (I 956).