States of epitaxial NiSi(2)Si heterostructures studied by DLTS and hydrogenation.

We have explored the possible role of bulk and interface defects in determining the potential barrier occurring at an "ideal" epitaxial metal-semiconductor contact. The results of deep level transient spectroscopy (DLTS), current-voltage (I-V) and capacitance-voltage (C-V) measurements before and after hydrogenation of samples show no evidence for the presence of defects. These observations are consistent with the idea of an intrinsic mechanism for Schottky barrier height (SBH) formation. We also demonstrate that under certain substrate preparation conditions the unintentional introduction of p- type impurities can give rise to spurious results.