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Germanium (Ge) is a promising material for next generation nanoelectronics and multiple junction solar cells. This work investigated the electrical properties in Cu/p-type Ge Schottky diodes, using current-voltage (I-V ) measurements. The Schottky barrier heights were 0.66, 0.59, and 0.70 eV from the forward ln(I)-V, Cheung, and Norde methods, respectively. The ideality factors were 1.92 and 1.78 from the forward ln(I)-V method and Cheung method, respectively. Such high ideality factor could be associated with the presence of an interfacial layer and interface states at the Cu/p-Ge interface. The reverse-biased current transport was dominated by the Poole-Frenkel emission rather than the Schottky emission.

Using current-voltage (I-V) measurements, we investigated the effect of oxygen plasma treatment on the temperature-dependent electrical properties of Cu/n-type indium phosphide (InP) Schottky contacts at temperatures in the range 100-300 K. Changes in the electrical parameters were evident below 180 K for the low-plasma-power sample (100 W), which is indicative of the presence of a wider distribution of regions of low barrier height. Modified Richardson plots were used to obtain Richardson constants, which were similar to the theoretical value of 9.4 A cm −2 K −2 for n-type InP. This suggests that, for all the samples, a thermionic emission model including a spatially inhomogeneous Schottky barrier can be used to describe the charge transport phenomena at the metal/semiconductor interface. The voltage dependence of the reverse-bias current revealed that Schottky emission was dominant for the untreated and high-plasma-power (250 W) samples. For the low-plasma-power sample, Poole-Frenkel emission was dominant at low voltages, whereas Schottky emission dominated at higher voltages. Defect states and nonuniformity of the interfacial layer appear to be significant in the reverse-bias charge transport properties of the low-plasma-power sample.

We fabricated the Cu Schottky contact on an n-type Ge wafer and investigated the forward bias current-voltage (I-V) characteristics in the temperature range of 100~300 K. The zero bias barrier height and ideality factor were determined based on the thermionic emission (TE) model. The barrier height increased and the ideality factor decreased with increasing temperature. Such temperature dependence of the barrier height and the ideality factor was associated with spatially inhomogeneous Schottky barriers. A notable deviation from the theoretical Richardson constant (140.0 Acm .

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