A Significant Shift of Schottky Barrier Heights at Strongly Pinned Metal/Germanium Interface by Inserting an Ultra-Thin Insulating Film

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Published 9 May 2008 ©2008 The Japan Society of Applied Physics
, , Citation Tomonori Nishimura et al 2008 Appl. Phys. Express 1 051406 DOI 10.1143/APEX.1.051406

1882-0786/1/5/051406

Abstract

At any metal/germanium (Ge) interfaces, Schottky junctions to n-Ge and ohmic ones to p-Ge are formed by the strong Fermi level pinning to the valence band edge of Ge. In this paper, we report that Schottky-ohmic characteristics are reversed by inserting an ultra-thin oxide film into the metal/Ge interface. A gradual change of Schottky barrier heights (SBHs) with increasing insulating film thickness has been found, which supports that the origin of Fermi level pinning at the metal/Ge junction is caused by the metal-induced gap states. Furthermore, the SBH change enables us to operate metal source/drain Ge n-channel metal–oxide–semiconductor field effect transistors (n-MOSFETs) without any impurity doping. We demonstrate the metal source/drain Ge n-MOSFET with a peak mobility of 270 cm2/(V·s).

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10.1143/APEX.1.051406