The Current-Voltage Characteristic of a Nickel to N-Type Silicon Junction
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Authors
Strome, David Hall
Issue Date
1969
Type
Thesis
Language
en_US
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Abstract
Contacts between metals and semiconductors
have been under investigation for many years because of the
value of their asymmetric conduction properties in producing
rectification. F. Braun was one of the earliest experimenters
in this field, and his basic method of making point contact
to various crystals with a fine metal wire was the subject
of continued research and development. A theoretical model
to explain the characteristics of such junctions was developed
by W. Schottky, and subsequent experimental and theoretical
investigators have adopted the term Schottky barrier to refer
to his description of a bending of energy bands in a metal
to semiconductor junction. Silicon, among other substances,
became an important semiconductor for such investigations.
The general acceptance of the concept of the Schottky barrier
(with theoretical modifications by others, particularly
J. Bardeen) provided the basis for further study of junction
effects, and in particular applications of the theory of
electron tunneling to the Schottky barrier are providing
information about both the physical processes involved in
tunneling and the properties of the semiconductors themselves.
Among the present researchers in this field is
Dr. E.L. Wolf of Eastman Kodak Research laboratories, who
is using an improved method of junction preparation in
gathering experimental data related to the phenomenon of
electron tunneling in metal to semiconductor junctions.
Most of Dr. Wolf's work has been done at liquid helium
temperature (4.2oK). The project described in this paper
was devised with the idea that informative complementary data
could be provided by a study of the junctions at higher temperatures.
As will be discussed later in the section an data
reduction and analysis, the theory of Schottky barriers predicts
a strong temperature dependence of the current through
a metal-semiconductor junction, thus suggesting measurements
over a wide range of temperature to test the validity of the
theory. The current also depends on the applied voltage, and
thus taking the current-voltage characteristic curve is also
an appropriate basic approach. It will be seen that information
about the effect of electron tunneling can also be
inferred from such data. This paper will describe the preparation of a nickel to N-type silicon junction and the measurement
of its I-V characteristic in the range from 4.20 K
to room temperature (300 0 K). Following sections on sample
preparation, low temperature apparatus, the I-V measurement
circuit, and experimental procedure will be a brief discussion
of the Schottky barrier theory to support the data
reduction and analysis.
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iv, 28 p.
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