An accurate method to extract specific contact resistivity using cross-bridge Kelvin resistors

The cross-bridge Kelvin resistor structure is used to extract true interfacial specific contact resistivity (ρ
c
). Two-dimensional (2-D) simulations demonstrate that the sublinear behavior of the measured contact resistance versus contact area on a log-log plot is due to current crowding around the contact which results from the contact window size being smaller than the diffusion width. The effect is more pronounced for low values of ρ
c
. Excellent agreement has been found between the simulations and measured data of contact resistances. An accurate value of ρ
c
has been extracted for the case of PtSi to n
⁺
polysilicon contacts.