Ž . Applied Surface Science 142 1999 390–393 Low frequency noise measurements on TiNrn-Si Schottky diodes J.I. Lee a, ),1 , J. Brini a , G. Kamarinos a , C.A. Dimitriadis b , S. Logothetidis b , P. Patsalas b a LPCS, ENSERG, 38016, Grenoble, France b Department of Physics, UniÕersity of Thessaloniki, 54006, Thessaloniki, Greece Abstract The deposition temperature dependence of the characteristics of TiN rn-Si Schottky diodes fabricated via reactive x magnetron sputtering, is studied through the current–voltage characterization and the low frequency excess noise measure- ments. As the deposition temperature was varied from room temperature up to 4008C, both the ideality factor of the diode and the power spectral density of the noise current decreased. The analysis of the low frequency noise shows that the noise due to the trapping and detrapping at the interface due to the random walk of electrons via the modulation of the barrier height dominates the noise due to the mobility fluctuation, except at very low current levels, in these non-ideal diodes. It is found that the interface states density could be reduced by almost an order of magnitude by raising the deposition temperature up to 4008C from room temperature. q 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PACS: 73.20.yr; 73.30.qy; 73.50.Td Keywords: Schottky barriers; Low frequency noise; Random walk of electrons; Reactive magnetron sputtering; Deposition temperature 1. Introduction Due to its low electrical resistivity, chemical and Ž . metallurgical stability, titanium nitride TiN has be- x come a good candidate for various applications in semiconductor devices technology, such as, diffusion barriers, gate electrodes in field-effect transistors, contact layers in solar cells, and a replacement of polycrystalline Si in very-large-scale metal-oxide- w x semiconductor integrated circuits 1–7 . Schottky ) Corresponding author. Photonics Research Center, Korea In- stitute of Science and Technology, Cheongryang, P.O. Box 131, Seoul 130-650, South Korea. Tel.: q82-2-958-5786; Fax. q82-2- 958-5709; E-mail: jil@kistmail.kist.re.kr 1 On leave from Photonics Research Center, KIST, Seoul 130- 650, Korea. barrier contacts to n-type Si have been fabricated via reactive magnetron sputtering and the effect of dif- ferent growth parameters, such as, the bias voltage w x and the N flow rate, has been studied 8,9 . In this 2 work, we investigated the effect of the deposition temperature on the characteristics of the TiN rn-Si x Schottky barrier diodes, utilizing the electrical char- acterization and the low frequency excess noise mea- surements. In the analysis of the noise measure- ments, we considered the contribution from the inter- w x face states 10 , in addition to those from the bulk w x traps in the depletion region 11,12 and the mobility w x and diffusivity fluctuation 13,14 . Useful informa- tion on the interface states density was obtained from the analysis and the results of the electrical charac- terization and the noise measurements were corre- lated. 0169-4332r99r$ - see front matter q 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Ž . PII: S0169-4332 98 00723-5