Effect of thermionic-field emission on effective barrier height lowering in In0.52Al0.48As Schottky diodes

Abstract

The effective lowering of the Schottky barrier height in In0.52Al0.48As diodes under reverse bias conditions is investigated by fitting experimental reverse-bias I-T relationships to the thermionic-field emission theory. This lowering can be explained by thermionic-field emission without assuming a lack of Fermi level pinning. The electron effective mass deduced experimentally from the fitting procedure ranges from 0.072m0 to 0.087m0, which is comparable to the published data. The effective barrier height is largely dependent on the temperature range of the current. The amount of the lowering is dependent on the electron effective mass, but not on the zero-field Schottky barrier height.