Investigation of electrical transport properties in heterojunctions comprised of silicon substrate and nanocrystalline iron disilicide films

Abstract

In this study, n-type nanocrystalline FeSi2/p-type Si heterojunctions were fabricated using facing-target direct-current sputtering (FTDCS). The possible transportation mechanisms of carriers were investigated by analysing the dark J-V characteristics at temperatures ranging between 60 and 300 K. The ideality factor (n) was estimated from the slope of the linear region for the forward lnJ-V characteristics. The value of n was 1.87 at 300 K and nearly constant at temperatures ranging from 140 to 300 K, suggesting that a recombination process at the junction interface was dominant in the transportation mechanism of carriers. At temperatures below 140 K, the value of n increased by more than two and the value of A was virtually constant. Owing to the consistency of A, combined with the temperature dependent value of n, the implication is that a trap-assisted multi-step tunnelling mechanism governed the carrier transport. From the analysis of J-V characteristics, the value of barrier height was 0.58 eV at 300 K and decreased to 0.19 eV at 60 K.