Evaluation of Metal-Semiconductor Contact Quality: Correlation of 1/f Noise and Nonlinearity

• Published in: IEEE transactions on electron devices Vol. 69; no. 12; pp. 1 - 6
• Main Authors: Ciura, Lukasz, PawelSliz, Jarosz, Dawid, Krzeminski, Piotr, MichalMarchewka
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01-12-2022; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: 1/f noise; Contact resistance; contacts; Current measurement; Current voltage characteristics; Electrical resistance measurement; low-frequency noise; Noise measurement; Nonlinearity; Quality assessment; Resistance; Semiconductor device measurement; semiconductor device noise; Semiconductor devices; Voltage measurement
• ISSN: 0018-9383; 1557-9646
• DOI: 10.1109/TED.2022.3218492

Measurement of 1/f noise emerges as a valuable tool for contact quality evaluation, which simultaneously provides information about the 1/f noise magnitude and nonlinearity of the contact. This article investigates experimentally the correlation of current-voltage characteristics nonlinearity and 1/f noise for the metal-semiconductor-metal structure. It was found that the nonlinearity and 1/f noise originate from metal-semiconductor contact. The relative 1/f noise of weak-nonlinear, roughly ohmic contact, is proportional to the parameter describing the nonlinearity. Further increase of contact nonlinearity, by decreasing the temperature, substantially increases the 1/f noise magnitude. The efforts to develop low-noise semiconductor devices should be focused on avoiding even weak nonlinearity of contacts because it results in substantial 1/f noise.