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Applied Physics Express 3 (2010) 101003

Nearly Ideal Current–Voltage Characteristics of Schottky Barrier Diodes Formed

on Hydride-Vapor-Phase-Epitaxy-Grown GaN Free-Standing Substrates
Jun Suda1
, Kazuki Yamaji1 , Yuichirou Hayashi1 , Tsunenobu Kimoto1;2 ,
Kenji Shimoyama3 , Hideo Namita4 , and Satoru Nagao4
1
Department of Electronic Science and Engineering, Kyoto University, Kyoto 615-8510, Japan
2
Photonics and Electronics Science and Engineering Center, Kyoto University, Kyoto 615-8510, Japan
3
Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation, Ushiku, Ibaraki 300-1295, Japan
4
Mitsubishi Chemical Group Science and Technology Research Center, Inc., Yokohama 227-8502, Japan
Received August 25, 2010; accepted September 20, 2010; published online October 15, 2010

The current–voltage characteristics of Schottky barrier diodes formed on GaN(0001) free-standing substrates with net donor concentrations of
7:6  1015 –1:4  1017 cm 3 are discussed. The substrates were grown by hydride vapor phase epitaxy. Ni Schottky contacts were directly formed
on chemical–mechanical-polished Ga-polar faces of the substrates. Nearly ideal characteristics for both directions were obtained. The ideality
factors for forward characteristics are 1.02 –1.05, very close to unity. The reverse characteristics agree well with calculations based on thermionic-
field emission theory without any fitting parameter. # 2010 The Japan Society of Applied Physics
DOI: 10.1143/APEX.3.101003

aN-based power electronic devices have attracted substrates.10) After removal of the sapphire substrate, the

G much attention due to their potential for low on-

resistance and high operation temperature.1,2) At
present, most of these devices are fabricated by using GaN
Ga-polar face of the free-standing GaN layer was finished
by chemical mechanical polishing (CMP). By atomic force
microscopy, a step-and-terrace structure was observed on
heteroepitaxial layers grown on foreign substrates such the surface. The root-mean-square roughness of the CMP-
as sapphire, SiC, and Si. Recently, it has become possible finished surface is as small as 0.05 nm. The thicknesses
to fabricate high-quality GaN free-standing substrates by of the GaN substrates were 250 – 400 m. Substrates with
various methods.3–10) Among them, hydride vapor phase different donor concentrations ranging from 1  1016 to
epitaxy (HVPE) is the most established method. Two inch 2  1017 cm3 were prepared for this study. In this paper,
GaN substrates with reduced threading-dislocation density we discuss three different substrates, 1, 2, and 3. The
are available.10) The HVPE-grown substrates are mainly threading-dislocation densities (TDDs) of these substrates
used for production of GaN-based laser diodes. In future, the were estimated to be ð2 { 3Þ  106 cm2 by counting dark
substrates are expected to be used for electronic devices as spots in panchromatic cathodoluminescence (CL) mapping
well. images.
A Schottky barrier diode is one of the building blocks of Before contact formation, GaN substrates were cleaned by
electronic devices. A Schottky barrier diode can be used as a sulfuric peroxide mixture (SPM), HCl, aqua regia and HF
power rectifier. It is also used as a gate electrode in metal– solutions. The substrates were rinsed by deionized water,
semiconductor field-effect transistors (MESFETs) and high- dried by nitrogen gas blow and loaded into a vacuum
electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs). There are many evaporation system. Backside ohmic contacts are formed
reports on GaN Schottky barrier diodes.11–15) However, by depositing Ti (20 nm)/Al (200 nm) followed by 750  C
due to the high density of defects in heteroepitaxial GaN, 3 min thermal treatment in atmospheric-pressure nitrogen
their current–voltage (I–V ) characteristics are dominated ambient. After the formation of backside contacts, Ni
by the leakage current related to defects. For the reversed Schottky contacts (100 nm) were formed by physical
bias condition, the observed current is much higher than evaporation directly on the Ga-polar faces of GaN
the theoretical current. There are a few reports on Schottky substrates. Circular contacts with various diameters (100 –
barrier diodes directly fabricated on GaN free-standing 300 m) were defined by using a metal shadow mask.
substrates with reduced defect density.16–19) However, these To obtain the exact net donor concentration (Nd ) of each
reports mainly focused on the feasibility of free-standing substrate, capacitance–voltage (C–V ) measurements at
GaN for power rectifiers, i.e., the main discussion points 1 MHz were performed by using 300-m-diameter Schottky
were on-resistances and breakdown voltages. These diodes contacts. Net donor concentrations and diffusion voltages
still suffered from large reverse leakage. I–V characteristics (Vd ) obtained from the slope and intersection of 1=C2 –V
were not analyzed systematically and quantitatively in these plots are summarized in Table I. Calculated barrier heights
reports. (
B CV ) were also shown in the table.
In this study, we investigate the electrical characteristics The I–V characteristics of 100-m-diameter diodes were
of Ni Schottky barrier diodes directly formed on HVPE- measured at room temperature. We measured 20 – 70 diodes
grown GaN(0001) free-standing substrates with different for each substrate. A typical example of forward I–V
doping concentrations. We obtained nearly ideal I–V characteristics is shown in Fig. 1, in which I–V curves of
characteristics. In other words, a current transport for an 20 diodes fabricated on substrate 1 (Nd ¼ 7:6  1015 cm3 )
ideal GaN Schottky barrier diode is identified. are shown. In Fig. 1, 19 of the diodes show almost iden-
GaN free-standing substrates were fabricated by the tical characteristics, while one diode (labeled A) exhibited
growth of a thick GaN layers by HVPE on sapphire (0001) different characteristics, i.e., it had a ledge. At higher current
density (>101 A/cm2 ), the I–V curve of diode A becomes


E-mail address: [email protected] close to those of the other 19 diodes. Diode A may contain
101003-1 # 2010 The Japan Society of Applied Physics
Appl. Phys. Express 3 (2010) 101003 J. Suda et al.

Table I. Obtained parameters of Ni Schottky diodes formed on free-

100
standing GaN substrates by C–V and I–V measurements.

Current density (A/cm2)

C–V I–V 10-2
Substrate
Nd (cm3 ) Vd (V)
B CV (eV) n
B (eV) A
10-4 C B
1 7:6  1015 0.84 0.99 1.02 –1.04 0.93
2 7:9  1016 0.80 0.89 1.03 –1.04 0.87
10-6
3 1:4  1017 0.87 0.95 1.04 –1.05 0.87
10-8

10-10
103
102
101 10-12
Current density (A/cm2)

-200 -100 0
100
10-1 Voltage (V)
10-2
10-3 A
Fig. 2. Reverse I–V characteristics of 20 GaN Schottky barrier diodes
10-4 with the doping concentration of 7:6  1015 cm 3 . A theoretical curve
10-5 19 diodes calculated by thermionic-field emission theory is shown by a dotted line.
10-6 Diode A (the same as that in Fig. 1) shows a significantly large reverse
-7
10
current. The curves of other diodes agree with the theoretical curve very
10-8
10-9 well with the exception of two diodes, B and C.
10-10
10-11
0 1 2
Voltage (V) The free-standing GaN substrates used in this study are
high quality compared with heteroepitaxial GaN layers, but
Fig. 1. Forward I–V characteristics of 20 GaN Schottky barrier diodes
still contain a TDD of 106 cm2 . Since the diameter of a
directly formed on a HVPE-grown GaN(0001) free-standing substrate diode is 100 m, each diode contains 100 – 200 threading
with a doping concentration of 7:6  1015 cm 3 . One diode labeled A dislocations. To separate the effect of threading dislocations
shows a ledge. The rest of the diodes show almost identical and ideal on reverse bias characteristics (reverse leakage current), a
characteristics.
theoretical calculation was carried out.
The doping range investigated in this study and the
reverse bias (up to 200 V) are rather high, resulting in
leak path originating from the substrate itself or device a high electric field at the metal/semiconductor interface.
processing. In this case, the tunneling process, i.e., thermionic field
The other 19 diodes were well fitted by the formula emission (TFE) instead of simple thermionic emission (TE),
(J ¼ J0 ½expðeV =nkT Þ  1) with considering series resis- should be considered.20) Here we used the simplified formula
tance. The ideality factors (n) of the diodes were 1.02 –1.04, of TFE current used for the analysis of SiC Schottky barrier
very close to unity. The barrier heights (
B ) of these diodes diodes as21)
were estimated to be 0.93 eV from J0 by the following rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
A
T eh E 
formulae: JTFE ¼


2 k 2mn kT
A T 4emn k2 


B ¼ kT ln ; A
¼ : 1 ðeh EÞ2
J0 h3  exp 
B  ;
kT 24mn ðkT Þ2
Here k and h are the Boltzmann constant and the Planck where E is the electric field at the metal/semiconductor
constant, respectively. A
is the effective Richardson interface, which is given by
constant. By using the electron effective mass of GaN rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
2eNd ðVd  V Þ
mn ¼ 0:23m0 , A
is calculated to be 28.9 A cm2 K2 . The E¼ :
obtained barrier heights are shown in Table I. They were "s "0
close to those obtained from 1=C2 –V plots. Diodes To calculate JTFE , we used values of Vd and Nd obtained
fabricated on other two substrates (2 and 3) show very from C–V measurement and
B obtained from forward I–V
similar forward characteristics. The ideality factors and the measurement. For the relative dielectric constant ("s ) of
barrier heights of these diodes are summarized in Table I. GaN, a well-established reported value of 10.4 was used.
Figure 2 shows the reverse I–V characteristics of diodes It should be noted that we just used measured parameters
on substrate 1. As expected, diode A which exhibits a ledge and there is no fitting parameter for the calculation. In other
for forward bias, shows leaky characteristics in the reverse words, we do not assume existence of high-density deep
bias condition. Seventeen of the other 19 diodes show levels or changing of donor concentration near the interface.
identical characteristics, the two exceptions being labeled B The calculated curve is shown in Fig. 2 by a dotted line.
and C. For 17 diodes, at a low reverse bias (5 V), reverse Surprisingly, the TFE theory showed very good agreement
current is very small, on the order of 1010 A/cm2 . With with experimental data. We conclude that the reverse current
increasing reverse voltage, the current gradually increases of the 17 diodes is the intrinsic characteristic of the Ni/GaN
and reaches 106 A/cm2 at 200 V. Characteristics of Schottky contact. Leakage current due to defects is low
diodes B and C are discussed later. compared with the intrinsic reverse current in these diodes.
101003-2 # 2010 The Japan Society of Applied Physics
Appl. Phys. Express 3 (2010) 101003 J. Suda et al.

10-2 factors: 1.03 –1.15 and barrier heights: 0.94 –1.01 eV).
Φ B = 0.87 eV However, for reverse bias, measured currents were four
Nd = 1.4×1017 cm–3
Current density (A/cm2) orders of magnitude larger (for example, 104 A/cm2 at
10-4 200 V) than that predicted from TFE theory. Surface of the
ΦB = 0.87 eV
MOVPE-grown GaN layer was very smooth, i.e., a step-and-
-6
Nd = 7.9×1016 cm–3 terrace structure was observed on the surface as observed on
10 the HVPE-grown GaN substrates, indicating large reverse
leakage is not due to surface roughness. We believe that
reverse leakage is severely affected by a high-density of
10-8
defects in the MOVPE-grown GaN diodes.
ΦB = 0.93 eV
Nd = 7.6×1015 cm–3
Ni Schottky diodes were directly formed on HVPE-grown
10-10 free-standing GaN substrates with three different net donor
-50 -40 -30 -20 -10 0 concentrations ranging from 7:6  1015 to 1:4  1017 cm3 .
Voltage (V) The diodes exhibited ideal I–V characteristics. Their reverse
I–V characteristics agree with a theoretical calculation based
Fig. 3. Reverse I–V characteristics of GaN Schottky barrier diodes with on the TFE model without a fitting parameter. Although each
different donor concentrations of 7:6  1015 , 7:9  1016 , and 1:4  1017
cm 3 . For all cases, measured curves agree with the theoretical curves
diode contains 100 – 200 threading dislocations, the reverse
by thermionic-field emission theory. leakage current due to the threading dislocations is smaller
than that of ideal TFE current.

On the other hand, the characteristics of diodes A, B, and C

may be dominated by defects.
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101003-3 # 2010 The Japan Society of Applied Physics