Adjusting Schottky barrier height—An Important method applied in semiconductor industry and sensors

This review is orgnized by Prof. Jianping Meng and Zhou Li (Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems, Chinese Academy of Sciences) and Prof. Chengguo Lee (Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore,). This review overview the static and dynamic approaches for adjusting Schottky barrier height. Static approaches include metal and interface gap. Dynamic adjustment techniques for the SBH include surface modification, image-lowering effect, external electric field, light illumination, and the piezotronic effect.

This review also discusses the strategies to overcome the Fermi level pinning effect induced by interface gap states. The inevitable Fermi level pinning induced by the interface gap states make it difficult to eliminate Schottky barriers. An effective method to eliminate Fermi level pinning is to form van der Waals contact in 2D material-based devices, whereas the existence of a gap introduces a non-negligible tunnel barrier, leading to the high contact resistance and the low efficiency of charge injection. Aim to overcome the tunnel barrier, methods including edge contacts, semi-metal contact, ultrahigh vacuum evaporation, low-energy metal integration, hybridization of M-S energy bands at Fermi energy, have been developed. While these methods can reduce or eliminate the tunnel barrier, their limited industrial compatibility restricts their widespread application. Therefore, further efforts are still needed to develop industry-compatible technologies that meet the evolving needs of the semiconductor industry.

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See the article:

Adjustment methods of Schottky barrier height in one- and two-dimensional semiconductor devices

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scib.2024.03.003

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