Schottky diodes, bias annealing

Other reverse-bias annealing experiments have been published that can be analyzed in the same way. Tavendale et al. (1985) used 10 ft cm boron-doped silicon passivated by exposure to plasmas containing or 2H. Schottky diodes formed with such specimens showed breakup of BH under heating at 80°C with reverse bias however, there was a persistence of passivation in the first two or three microns that must be attributed to some sort of near-surface reservoir of hydrogen. This effect was absent in an annealing experiment on a junction diode with an -type surface... 

Much of the discussion of this subsection has been based on the behavior of hydrogenated diodes annealed under reverse bias. Annealing under forward bias has also been studied, though less extensively, and some of the observations have suggested the possibility of a new type of thermal breakup of BH complexes, namely BH + e— B + H° (Tavendale et al., 1985, 1986a). These authors reported breakup of BH in a few hours at 300 K under forward bias, both in Schottky diodes and in n+-p junctions. However, in a similar experiment with an n+-p junction, Johnson (1986) found a slight buildup of BH under forward-bias anneal. Available details of the various experiments are too sketchy to allow useful speculation on the reasons for the different outcomes or possible mechanisms for accelerated breakup. 

Fig. 4. Depth profiles of the donor concentration in Schottky-barrier diodes on n-type silicon (a) before and after hydrogenation (130°C, 60 min) and (b) after a post-hydrogenation anneal at 60°C with and without a reverse bias of 4 V (Zhu el at, 1990).

The Schottky barriers were excellent diodes for films annealed at 600 °C, with turn on voltages of 0.6-0.8V and minimal reverse bias leakage.48 However, many of the contacts on the as-deposited films gave large reverse bias currents and nearly ohmic responses. This behavior is indicative of degeneracy of the semiconductor because of a high carrier density resulting from native defects. The improvement in the diode behavior of the annealed films is attributed to enhanced crystallinity and reduction of defects. 

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