High-Performance Thin-Film IGZO Schottky Diodes With Sputtered PdOₓ Anode

Thin-film Schottky barrier diodes (SBDs) based on amorphous oxide semiconductors play an important role in flexible and wearable electronics. In this work, thin-film SBDs based on indium-gallium-zinc oxide (InGaZnO or IGZO) were fabricated with sputtered PdO
_x
/Pd top Schottky contact and low-temperature (100 °C) annealing in air atmosphere. PdO
_x
produces an oxygen-rich stoichiometry in the Schottky interface, resulting in high-quality contact with rather low interface trap state density of 2.6×10
¹⁷
cm
^-3
and extremely low barrier inhomogeneity of 0.01 eV. As a result, high-performance IGZO SBDs were achieved with high ON/ OFF ratio of 3×10
⁷
, near-unity ideality factor of 1.04, barrier height of 0.85 eV, high ON-current density of 2.5A·cm
^-2
at 1 V, and high reverse breakdown voltage of ~12 V.