Experimental Data Base

As an instructive example, experimental data of Ag/n-Si(111)-(1×1)^i and -(1×1)^i Schottky contacts are discussed in detail. These contacts were chosen because special techniques have been developed to fabricate clean metal-silicon interfaces. The barrier heights of these diodes decrease with increasing ideality factors. The analysis of these data reveals three different mechanisms, namely patches with lower barrier heights and lateral dimensions smaller than the width of the depletion layers, interface dipoles due to the stacking fault of the (7×7)^i interface reconstruction and in addition to these extrinsic contributions, the intrinsic mechanism that explains the barrier heights of ideal, i.e., abrupt, clean and laterally homogeneous Schottky contacts.