Effective Richardson Constant of Sol-Gel Derived TiO2 Films in n-TiO2/p-Si Heterojunctions

The effective Richardson constant of sol-gel derived TiO
₂
thin film has been estimated possibly for the first time from temperature-dependent current-voltage (I-V-T) characteristics of p-Si/n-TiO
₂
thin-film heterojunction diode by including the barrier height inhomogeneity at p-Si/n-TiO
₂
interface. The thermionic emission theory-based I-V-T characteristics have been modified by assuming a Gaussian distributed barrier height at the heterojunction interface. The Richardson plot shows a nearly ideal Richardson constant of ~1265.57 Acm
^-2
K
^-2
, which is not only very close to its theoretical value of ~1200 Acm
^-2
K
^-2
for n-TiO
₂
(with m
_n
* = 10m
₀
), but also the first result reported.