Article

Improved Ni/3C-SiC contacts by effective contact area and conductivity increases at the nanoscale

Applied Physics Letters (impact factor: 3.84). 03/2009; 94(11):112104-112104-3. DOI:10.1063/1.3099901 pp.112104-112104-3

ABSTRACT We report on the evolution of the electrical and structural properties of Ni/3C-SiC contacts during annealing in the temperature range of 600–950 °C. A structural analysis showed the formation of different nickel silicide phases upon annealing. A combination of transmission line model and conductive atomic force microscopy measurements demonstrated a correlation between the macroscale specific contact resistance and the nanoscale resistance, measured locally across the sample. These results further revealed that the structural evolution is accompanied by an increased uniformity of the local current distribution, indicating that an increase of the effective contact area contributes to the improvement of the contact properties.

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    Article: Nanoscale characterization of electrical transport at metal/3C-SiC interfaces.
    Jens Eriksson, Fabrizio Roccaforte, Sergey Reshanov, Stefano Leone, Filippo Giannazzo, Raffaella Lonigro, Patrick Fiorenza, Vito Raineri
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    ABSTRACT: In this work, the transport properties of metal/3C-SiC interfaces were monitored employing a nanoscale characterization approach in combination with conventional electrical measurements. In particular, using conductive atomic force microscopy allowed demonstrating that the stacking fault is the most pervasive, electrically active extended defect at 3C-SiC(111) surfaces, and it can be electrically passivated by an ultraviolet irradiation treatment. For the Au/3C-SiC Schottky interface, a contact area dependence of the Schottky barrier height (ΦB) was found even after this passivation, indicating that there are still some electrically active defects at the interface. Improved electrical properties were observed in the case of the Pt/3C-SiC system. In this case, annealing at 500°C resulted in a reduction of the leakage current and an increase of the Schottky barrier height (from 0.77 to 1.12 eV). A structural analysis of the reaction zone carried out by transmission electron microscopy [TEM] and X-ray diffraction showed that the improved electrical properties can be attributed to a consumption of the surface layer of SiC due to silicide (Pt2Si) formation. The degradation of Schottky characteristics at higher temperatures (up to 900°C) could be ascribed to the out-diffusion and aggregation of carbon into clusters, observed by TEM analysis.
    Nanoscale Research Letters 01/2011; 6(1):120. · 2.73 Impact Factor
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Keywords

conductive atomic force microscopy measurements
 
different nickel silicide phases
 
effective contact area contributes
 
local current distribution
 
macroscale specific contact resistance
 
Ni/3C-SiC contacts
 
structural analysis
 
structural evolution
 
temperature range
 
transmission line model