A study on electrical properties of Au/4H-SiC Schottky diode under illumination.

In this work, a metal–semiconductor diode in the form of Au/4H-SiC is fabricated, and the electrical properties of this device are systematically examined under dark and different illumination intensities. To perform this, the current–voltage (I–V) characteristics of the Schottky-type diode are analyzed at room temperature. The performance parameters such as saturation current ( I 0 ), barrier height ( Φ B ), ideality factor (n ) and series resistance ( R s ) are found to be illumination dependent. The reverse biased I - V characteristics under incident light indicate high photo-sensitivity as compared to the response at forward bias. Thus, this result is investigated in detail according to both Schottky and Poole–Frenkel effects. It is found that the Poole–Frenkel mechanism is dominant in the reverse biased region. The Au/4H-SiC Schottky junction has a strong photo-current response to the different illumination intensities and transient photocurrent characteristics of the fabricated device are studied at the illumination intensities of 50 and 100 mW/cm². All experimental results indicate that the Au/4H-SiC Schottky diode, with a valuable response to the illumination together with change in illumination intensity, can be used for optoelectronic applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]