Near-ideal platinum-GaN Schottky diodes

Fabrication and characterisation of nearly ideal Pt/n-GaN Schottky barrier diodes are described. The n-GaN employed was grown by the reactive molecular beam epitaxy method. The capacitance/voltage (C/V) characteristics indicate marginal trap density in the semiconductor, and the current/voltage (I/V) characteristics give an ideality factor very close to unity. Barrier height deduced both from I/V and C/V measurements are similar to 1.10 eV provided the influence of scattering is considered negligible. This confirms again the near absence of interface traps in the diodes, and suggests that the effective mass of an electron in GaN is 0.2+/-0.02.