Improvements in aluminum-silicon Schottky barriers due to processing with a pulsed ruby laser

Improvements in Schottky barrier characteristics (increases in barrier heights and reductions in n-values or ideality factors) have been obtained for aluminum-n-type silicon contacts upon irradiation of single (1 msec) pulses from a ruby laser (λ = 0.694 µm). Increases in φ
b
of up to 0.2 volts and decreases in n by a factor of ≃ 2 have been observed for optical pulse energies in the range of 25-40 J cm
^-2
.