Voltage Controlled Hot Carrier Injection Enables Ohmic Contacts Using Au Island Metal Films on Ge

Ganti, Srinivas, King, Peter J, Arac, Erhan, Dawson, Karl ORCID: 0000-0003-3249-8328, Heikkila, Mikko J, Quilter, John H, Murdoch, Billy, Cumpson, Peter and O'Neill, Anthony (2017) Voltage Controlled Hot Carrier Injection Enables Ohmic Contacts Using Au Island Metal Films on Ge. ACS APPLIED MATERIALS & INTERFACES, 9 (33). pp. 27357-27364. ISSN 1944-8244, 1944-8252

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Abstract

We introduce a new approach to creating low-resistance metal-semiconductor ohmic contacts, illustrated using high conductivity Au island metal films (IMFs) on Ge, with hot carrier injection initiated at low applied voltage. The same metallization process simultaneously allows ohmic contact to n-Ge and p-Ge, because hot carriers circumvent the Schottky barrier formed at metal/n-Ge interfaces. A 2.5× improvement in contact resistivity is reported over previous techniques to achieve ohmic contact to both n- and p- semiconductor. Ohmic contacts at 4.2 K confirm nonequilibrium current transport. Self-assembled Au IMFs are strongly orientated to Ge by annealing near the Au/Ge eutectic temperature. Au IMF nanostructures form, provided the Au layer is below a critical thickness. We anticipate that optimized IMF contacts may have applicability to many material systems. Optimizing this new paradigm for metal-semiconductor contacts offers the prospect of improved nanoelectronic systems and the study of voltage controlled hot holes and electrons.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	hot carriers, voltage controlled, island metal film, ambipolar contact, Au-Ge, Ohmic, ballistic emission, heteroepitaxy
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	29 Aug 2017 14:34
Last Modified:	06 Dec 2024 23:15
DOI:	10.1021/acsami.7b06595
Related URLs:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3009217