A new approach to studying the electrical behavior and the inhomogeneities of the Schottky barrier height

In this paper, two Schottky structures of Au/n-GaAs (sample A) and Au/0.8 nm-GaN/n-GaAs (sample B) were fabricated and electrically characterized by current–voltage measurements at different temperatures. Two models, a classical one and another previously proposed named Helal model ref (Helal et al. Eur Phys J Plus, 135:1–14, 2020). Both the models show that the ideality factor n grows as the temperature decreases, and the second model shows higher values especially at low temperatures. The barrier height Φ_b calculated using the second model decreases when temperature increases for both structures, according to the temperature-dependent band gap, and in contrast to the results obtained by the classical model. Moreover, the second model gives a homogeneous Schottky barrier height and the best resolution of Richardson constant A^* , for both structures. On the other hand, the classical model shows an inhomogeneity of the barrier height and very far values of A^* from the theoretical one, in both structures. The findings of this study support the validity and dependability of the proposed alternative model. Furthermore, it may give a new insight into the electrical behavior of the Schottky structures.