Field and thermionic-field emission in Schottky barriers

Abstract Field emission and thermionic-field (T-F) emission are considered as the phenomena responsible for the excess currents observed both in the forward and reverse directions of Schottky barriers formed on highly doped semiconductors. Voltage-current characteristics are derived for field and thermionic-field emission in the forward and reverse regime. The temperatures and voltages where these phenomena are predominent for a given diode are discussed. Comparison with experimental results on GaAs and Si diodes shows good agreement between theory and experiments.