Barrier height and tunneling current in Schottky diodes with embedded layers of quantum dots

Electrical characteristics of silicon Schottky diodes containing Ge quantum dot (QD) arrays are investigated. It has been found that the potential barrier height at the metal-semiconductor contact can be controlled by introducing dense QD layers, which is a consequence of the formation of a planar electrostatic potential of charged QDs. When the applied voltage is varied, the ideality factors of Schottky barriers exhibit oscillations due to the tunneling of holes through discrete levels in quantum dots.