Effects of pre- and post-annealing treatments on silicon Schottky barrier diodes

Experimental results obtained on metal-silicon Schottky barriers are presented. The investigation concerns the effect of preconditioning the silicon surface prior to metal evaporation, and also the change in barrier height with a post-evaporation heat treatment. The values for a particular metal indicate that the preannealing results in a barrier height closer to that predicted by the Schottky model. Heat treating of the formed diode shows the barrier height approaching the limiting value obtained on cleaved silicon surfaces.