Structural and Electrical Properties of a-Si Schottky Diode based on ZnO Top Layer and Ag Intermidiate Ultrathin-Films

In this paper, the combination of ZnO top layer and intermediate Ag ultrathin films is proposed to enhance the performance of Amorphous-Silicon (a-Si) Schottky Barrier Diodes (SBDs). The latter was fabricated by means of RF magnetron sputtering technique. Accordingly, ZnO/Ag/ZnO/a-Si/Ag/a-Si embedded thin-films were sputtered at room temperature conditions on glass substrate. The morphological and structural properties of the prepared structure were analyzed by performing XRD and SEM characterizations. Characterizations showed an amorphous-like structure of the prepared samples. The electrical parameters of a-Si SBDs with and without Ag middle layer were extracted from current-voltage measurements. It was revealed that the use of ZnO top layer combined with Ag ultrathin-films leads to enhance the electrical behavior of a-Si SBD, where the device offers low series resistance of
$2\times 10^{3}\ \Omega$
and high derived current capability, while maintaining low off current. This improvement is attributed to the enhanced resistive behavior due to the presence of Ag thin-films. Therefore, the present investigation can provide new strategies for the elaboration of highly-performance SBDs based on a-Si platform, which are suitable for the emerging optoelectronic applications.