Tunneling and thermionic emission as charge transport mechanisms in W-based Schottky contacts on AlGaN/GaN heterostructures

[Display omitted] •The coexistence of two different mechanisms has been observed at lower (tunneling) and higher (thermionic emission) applied bias.•The “Overlap Bias” has been defined as the bias value at which the two mechanisms have the same contribution.•The origin of the tunneling contribution has been attributed to the presence of structural defects in the AlGaN/GaN heterostructure. This paper investigates the forward conduction mechanism of W-based Schottky diodes on AlGaN/GaN heterostructures across a temperature range of 25–150 °C. Current-Voltage measurements carried out at different temperatures (I-V-T), allow to identify two coexisting mechanisms for charge transport. At lower bias the conduction mechanism is ruled by tunneling (TU), with a characteristic energy of E00 = 75 meV extracted from the temperature dependence of the ideality factor. At higher bias the Thermionic Emission (TE) mechanism dominates, thus revealing the presence of an inhomogeneous barrier that increases from 0.77 to 0.94 eV with increasing the measurement temperature. An ideal barrier of 1.22 eV was extrapolated for a unitary ideality factor. Structural and electrical analyses performed at nanoscale level revealed the presence of a density of defects (dislocations) in the order of 4 × 109 cm−2. Conductive Atomic Force Microscopy (C-AFM) provided local electrical information, uncovering a significant correlation between the observed electrical characteristics and the nanoscale defect distribution. This detailed insight highlights the crucial role of the electrical characteristics of defects in influencing the tunneling current component at low bias, thereby providing valuable context for understanding the electrical behavior and performance of microscopic devices.