Metal contacts to n-type AlGaAs grown by molecular beam epitaxy

We report for the first time the barrier heights of Cu, Ni, Ag, Ti on etched n-type Al0.33Ga0.67As and their dependence on annealing temperature with I–V and C–V techniques. The barrier heights of Al and Au, measured for comparison, are 0.96 and 1.06 eV, respectively, in excellent agreement with the results reported previously. The barrier heights of the Cu, Ni, Ag and Ti/nAl0.33Ga0.67As diodes are found to be 1.08, 0.90, 0.87 and 0.87 eV, respectively. It is observed that the barrier heights for Al, Au, Cu and Ti contacts monotonically decrease with annealing temperature. For the Ag and Ni contacts, however, they become higher after being annealed at 473 K for 10 min and become lower thereafter, accompanied by a change of their ideality factors in opposite direction. The barrier heights extrapolated from C–V measurements for all metals studied are higher than that deduced from I–V data, and become higher after annealing at high temperatures, indicating the existence of a thin oxide layer at interface and broadening of the oxide after annealing. Our results can be qualitatively explained by the quality of contact and defects created at the semiconductor surface due to interdiffusion.