The Schottky Properties of Zirconium Boride Contacts on GaAs

We report for the first trime the electrical properties of zirconium boride contacts on GaAs. Zirconium boride, a chemically inert and a refractory electrical conductor was deposited using a low voltage dc triode sputtering process with 200MuOMEGA-cm sheet resistivity. As-deposited films produced Schottky diodes with a barrier height (PHI sub B) of 0.66V, an ideality facotr (n) of 1.89, and a leakage current (I sub n) of 87 nA at a reverse bias of -1V. A low temperature anneal (250C for 30min) in an inert ambient reduced the I sub R by more than a factor of ten; PHI sub B increased to 0.76 and n reduced to 1.17.