This reports the electrical properties of single-crystal β-gallium oxide (β-Ga₂O₃) vertical Schottky barrier diodes (SBDs) with a different guard ring structure. The vertical Schottky barrier diodes (V-SBDs) were fabricated with two types guard ring structures, one is with metal deposited on the Al₂O₃ passivation layer (film guard ring: FGR) and the other is with vias formed in the Al₂O₃ passivation layer to allow the metal to contact the Ga₂O₃ surface (metal guard ring: MGR). The forward current values of FGR and MGR V-SBD are 955 mA and 666 mA at 9 V, respectively, and the specific on-resistance (Ron,sp) is 5.9 mΩ·cm² and 29 mΩ·cm². The series resistance (Rs) in the nonlinear section extracted using Cheung’s formula was 6 Ω, 4.8 Ω for FGR V-SBD, 10.7 Ω, 6.7 Ω for MGR V-SBD, respectively, and the breakdown voltage was 528 V for FGR V-SBD and 358 V for MGR V-SBD. Degradation of electrical characteristics of the MGR V-SBD can be attributed to the increased reverse leakage current caused by the guard ring structure, and it is expected that the electrical performance can be improved by preventing premature leakage current when an appropriate reverse voltage is applied to the guard ring area. On the other hand, FGR V-SBD shows overall better electrical properties than MGR V-SBD because Al₂O₃ was widely deposited on the Ga₂O₃ surface, which prevent leakage current on the Ga₂O₃ surface.

In this paper, we discussed the effect of field plate dielectric materials such as silicon dioxide (SiO₂), aluminum oxide (Al₂O₃), and hafnium oxide (HfO₂) on the breakdown characteristics of β-Ga₂O₃ Schottky barrier diodes (SBDs). The breakdown voltage (BV) of the SBDs with a field plate was higher than that of SBDs without a field plate. The higher dielectric constant of HfO₂ contributed to the superior reduction in electric field concentration at the Schottky junction edge from 5.4 to 2.4 MV/cm. The SBDs with HfO₂ field plate showed the highest BV of 720 V, and constant specific on-resistance (R_on,sp) of 5.6 mΩ·㎠, resulting in the highest Baliga’s figure-of-merit (BFOM) of 92.0 MW/㎠. We also investigated the effect of dielectric thickness and field plate length on BV.

Silicon carbide is widely used in power semiconductor devices owing to its high energy gap. In particular, Schottky barrier diode (SBD) and PiN diodes fabricated on 4H-SiC wafers are being applied to various fields such as power devices. The characteristics of SBD and PiN diodes can be extracted from C-V and I-V characteristics. The measured Schottky barrier height (SBH) was 1.23 eV in the temperature range of 298~473 K, and the average ideal factor is 1.17. The results show that the device with the Schottky contact is characterized by the theory of thermal emission. As the temperature increases, the parameters are changed and the Vth is shifted to lower voltages.

1,200 V class junction barrier schottky (JBS) diodes and schottky barrier diodes (SBD) were simultaneously fabricated on the same 4H-SiC wafer. The resulting diodes were characterized at temperatures from room temperature to 473 K and subsequently compared in terms of their respective I-V characteristics. The parameters deduced from the observed I-V measurements, including ideality factor and series resistance, indicate that, as the temperature increases, the threshold voltage decreases whereas the ideality factor and barrier height increase. As JBS diodes have both Schottky and PN junction structures, the proper depletion layer thickness, R_on, and electron mobility values must be determined in order to produce diodes with an effective barrier height. The comparison results showed that the JBS diodes exhibit a larger effective barrier height compared to the SBDs.