Field-enhanced tunneling and barrier lowering in Al—n+GaAs—nGaAs Schottky contacts grown by MBE

A thin, highly Si-doped (n-type) interfacial layer is used for controlled barrier lowering in n-type GaAs. The thickness and the doping density of the interfacial n+ layer in the range of 50-100 Å, are extracted from the measured electrical characteristics of Schottky contacts. A model for field-enhanced tunneling current in metal--nGaAs Schottky structures is presented and the experimental results for Al-n+ GaAs devices fabricated using molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) show good agreement.