Room-Temperature Electrical Characteristics of Pd∕SiC Diodes with Embedded Au Nanoparticles at the Interface

We investigate the effects of localized controlled nanometric inhomogeneities, represented by Au nanoparticles, on the electrical properties of Pd/SiC Schottky diodes. In particular, we investigate the effects of the nanoparticle radius R on the current-voltage characteristics. The main result concerns the strong dependence of the effective Schottky barrier height of the Pd/SiC contact on R, giving a practical technique to tailor, in a wide range, such a barrier height by simply changing the process parameters during the diode preparation. Then, from a basic understanding point of view, such data allow us to test the Tung model describing the effects of inhomogeneities on the electrical pro…