Effect of indium doping on the electrical and structural properties of TiO2 thin films used in MOS devices

Abstract We investigated the effect of Indium (In) doping on the structural and electrical properties of Ti/Au/TiO 2 :In/n-Si metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) devices. Sputtering grown TiO 2 thin films on Si substrate were doped using two In-films with 15 nm and 50 nm thicknesses leading to two structures named Low Indium Doped (LID) sample and High Indium Doped (HID) sample, respectively. XRD analysis shows no diffraction pattern related to Indium indicating that In has been incorporated into the TiO 2 lattice. Current-Voltage (I-V) characteristics show that rectification ratio at 2 V is higher for HID sample than for LID sample. Evaluated barrier height, ϕ B 0 , decreased while the ideality factor, n, increased with decreasing temperature. Such behavior is ascribed to barrier inhomogeneity that was assumed to have a Gaussian Distribution (GD) of barrier heights at interface. Evidence of such GD was confirmed by plotting ϕ B 0 versus n. High value of mean barrier ϕ ¯ B 0 and lower value of standard deviation ( σ ) of HID structure are due to indium doping which increases the barrier homogeneities. Finally, estimated Richardson constants A* are in good agreement with theoretic values (112 A/cm 2 K 2 ), particularly, for the HID structure.