Potential Influence of Surface Atomic Disorder on Fermi-level Pinning at Metal/SiGe Interface

The Schottky barrier heights (SBH) at metal/n-Si_0.55Ge_0.45 Schottky interface are reported as a function of work function of metals. In comparison of the pinning strength with metal/Si and metal/Ge, the result shows that a large amount of disorders and defects on SiGe do not have a significant effect on the Fermi level pinning (FLP), which may suggest that the intrinsic instead of extrinsic mechanism should be considered for the dominant mechanism of Fermi level pinning not only at metal/SiGe but also at metal/Si and Ge systems.