Thermal stability of Pt- and Ni-based Schottky contacts on GaN and Al0.31Ga0.69N

In this work we analyse the performance of Pt- and Ni-based Schottky metallizations on Al x Ga 1− x N ( x = 0, 0.31). An intermediate thin Ti layer is shown to enhance the thermal stability of Pt/Au, and leads to an increase of the Schottky barrier height. Pt/Ti/Au contacts on GaN provide a barrier height of 1.18 ± 0.07 eV, increasing up to 2.0 ± 0.1 eV on Al 0.31 Ga 0.69 N. Further improvement of Schottky contacts is achieved by surface passivation with plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposited SiO 2 or Si x N y , which reduces the leakage current by two orders of magnitude and structural modifications in the metal due to thermal ageing.