Thermal reliability and performances of InGaP Schottky contact with Cu/Au and Au/Cu-MSM photodetectors

We report the Schottky performance and thermal reliability of a wide bandgap InGaP layer in contact with a Cu/Au metallic system. An effective Schottky barrier height of 0.97 eV and an ideality factor of 1.21 can be achieved. The thermal reliability of the resultant Schottky barrier diodes was analyzed using Auger electron spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy. The thermal reliability could be maintained up to 450 °C. The failure mechanism was attributable to the decomposition of the InGaP layer and the interdiffusion of the chemical elements at higher temperature. Insensitive photoresponsivity with the incident optical power was found for the resultant Au/Cu-metal-semiconductor-metal-photodetectors (MSM-PDs). According to the measured temporal response of the Au/Cu-MSM-PDs, the operation frequency could be above 10 GHz.