Home Assignment - VII (EEL732)

Adersh Miglani
Adersh.Miglani@gmail.com
13-Sep-2013
Assignment: Submit a report on how Lateral Merged Dou-
ble Schottky (LMDS [1]) rectier work and solve leakage
current and forward voltage drop problems. Also explain how
LMDS rectier lowers image force barrier lowering (IFBL)
effect.
Solution: In case of conventional Schottky barrier rectier,
the common non-ideal effect is IFBL also called Schottky
effect. The other two desirable outcome from a rectier are
low leakage current and low forward voltage drop. First, these
effects are explained and, later, we discuss how these effects
are reduced in case of LMDS over conventional Schottky
barrier, lateral low barrier Schottky (LLBS) and lateral high
barrier Schottky (LHBS) rectiers.
1) Image Force Barrier Lowering: In an ideal case for
Schottky barrier rectier, the potential barrier to the elec-
tron owing from metal to semiconductor is unchanged.
But, the barrier height,
B0
= (
m

s
) where
m
is metal work function and
s
is electron afnity for
semiconductor, also depends on the applied voltage.
Within the semiconductor an electron at a distance +x
induces a positive charge on the metal surface as if an
image charge +e is located at the same distance x
from the metal surface. The force of attraction between
these two charges is called image force and is
F =
(e)(+e)
4
s
(2x)
2
=
e
2
16
s
x
2
The potential energy of an electron at a distance +x is
E(x) =

F dx =
e
2
16
s
x
The potential at point +x is
(x) =
E(x)
e
=
e
16
s
x
With an applied electric eld E the net potential is
(x) =
e
16
s
x
E x
Thus, peak potential barrier is lowered. This effect is
called image force barrier lowering (IFBL) or Shottky
barrier lowering as shown in Fig. 1. This effect dom-
inates when Schottky barrier rectier is under reverse
bias. The lowering effect and its position from metal
surface x
m
can be computed by the following condition
[3].
d(e (x))
dx
= 0
Fig. 1. Energy band diagram of a metal-semiconductor junction. m is metal
work function. The effective barrier
B
is lowered by when an electric
eld E is applied. (From [2])
e
16
s
x
2
m
E = 0 x
m
=

e
16
s
E
Use x
m
in equation for
x
, we get
=
e
16
s

e
16sE
E

e
16
s
E
= 2

eE
16
s
=

eE
4
s
2) Reverse Leakage Current and Forward Voltage
Drop: If Schottky barrier height is reasonably smaller
than the band gap, the reverse current (J
R
) would
increase gradually with increase in reverse bias voltage.
The dependence of J
R
on reverse bias voltage before the
breakdown voltage is not a desired behavior. The reverse
leakage current should be as minimum as possible. Also,
in conventional Schottky barrier rectier, the reverse
breakdown is relatively slow because the peak electric
eld is large at the metal-semiconductor contact. The
forward voltage drop (V
F
) of Schottky barrier rectier
is a function of barrier height. Though V
F
is less than
the conventional PN junction diode, it can be further
reduced if barrier lowering effect is reduced. Thus,
barrier lowering effect is undesired behavior.
LMDS Rectier: In schottky barrier rectier, the difference
in the work function of metal and electron afnity of semi-
conductor plays the key role in achieving desired forward and
reverse bias characteristics. The LMDS provides reduction in
reverse leakage current by about three orders of magnitude
between 100 to 1000 V reverse bias with low forward voltage
drop. The reverse breakdown voltage is also increased with
sharp reverse bias characteristics. While reviewing LMDS, we
would refer the forward and reverse bias characteristics of
lateral low barrier Schottky (LLBS) and lateral high barrier
Schottky (LHBS) rectiers. The reason is that LLBS provides
low forward voltage drop and LHBD provides good reverse
characteristics.
1) If a metal is chosen such that the barrier height is low-
ered, the forward voltage drop, V
F
, would be lowered
but the reverse leaking current J
R
would be higher.
Conversely, if barrier height is more, reverse leakage
current J
R
is reduced but forward voltage drop, V
F
,
would become higher. So, there is a trade off between
the V
F
and J
R
. To summarize, the forward voltage
drop should be lower and reverse breakdown should be
sharp with low reverse leakage current because Schottky
rectiers are generally used in power integrated circuits.
2) In LMDS, anode consists of Titanium (Ti), a metal
with lower Schottky barrier height (= 0.85 V ) in
between two trenches of Nickel (Ni), a metal with high
Schottky barrier height (= 1.5 V ). The cathode contact
is contacted with N+ region on both the sides of the
device.
3) Barrier Height Lowering: The LMDS has a simple
model for barrier height lowering as given by

B
= a [E
avg
]
1
2
+b (1)
where E
avg
is the average electric eld at the Schottky
contact and a and b are constants. These constants are
simulated such that desired reverse bias behavior can be
achieved. Therefore, modeling of LMDS is important
in determining a and b. These constants should be
computed for Ni and Li metals separately.
Fig. 2. Forward bias characteristics for LMDS, LLBS and LHBS. (From
[1])
4) Forward Characteristics: The forward voltage drop for
LMDS rectier is very close to LLBS rectier as shown
in Fig. 2. In forward bias, the effect of low barrier
Schottky height (Ti) dominate over high barrier Schottky
height (Ni) in case of LMDS. Thus, under forward bias,
LMDS behaves as a LLBS.
Fig. 3. Reverse bias characteristics for LMDS, LLBS and LHBS. (From [1])
5) Reverse Characteristics: The Fig. 3 shows that reverse
bias characteristics strongly depends on the Schottky
barrier height. The reverse leakage current increases
very rapidly in case of LLBS and LHBS rectiers. But,
in case of LMDS rectier, the reverse leakage current
increases merely in an order or 2 to 3 as reverse bias is
increased from 100 to 1000 V. Also, LLBS and LHBS
has slow reverse breakdown but LMDS shows sharp
reverse break down which is the desired behavior.
6) Effect of Barrier Height Lowering: As reverse voltage
increases, the barrier lowering increases faster for LLBS
rectier. This results in large leakage current. But, the
% lowering for LHBS rectier is lesser as compared to
LLBS rectier. This causes low reverse leakage current
for LHBS rectier. In case of LMDS rectier, the region
between two HBS trenches experiences pinch-off under
reverse bias and this results in a very small change in
barrier lowering with increase in reverse bias voltage.
Thus, the reverse leakage current increases by a factor
of 2 to 3 only between 100 to 1000 V.
The Schottky barrier diode is a majority carrier device. It
means that there is no diffusion capacitance [3]. While switch-
ing from forward to reverse bias, there are no minority carriers
stored and minority carrier storage time is zero. This makes
Schottky barrier rectiers as fast switching applications. Along
with various advantages in Schottky barrier rectiers over PN
junction, LMDS provides additional better forward and reverse
bias characteristics which makes it suitable for low-loss, high-
voltage and high-speed power IC applications.
REFERENCES
[1] Y. Singh, A new 4h-sic lateral merged double schottky (lmds) rectier
with excellent forward and reverse characteristics, IEEE TRANSAC-
TIONS ON ELECTRON DEVICES, vol. 48, 2001.
[2]
[3] D. A. Neamen and D. Biswas, Semiconductor Physics and devices, 4th ed.
Tata McGraw Hill, ISBN(13): 978-07-107010-2, 2012.