Elaboration and characterization of a new Schottky diode based on ZnO/Au/ZnO tri-layered structure

In this paper, we fabricated a new Schottky barrier diode (SBD) design with ZnO/Au/ZnO multilayer architecture by means of RF magnetron sputtering technique. A systematic electrical characterization of the prepared device is conducted. Moreover, an exhaustive study about the influence of the gold layer on the diode characteristics is performed. Interestingly, it was revealed that inserting Au middle layer induces depletion regions at the Au/ZnO interfaces even without the presence of external voltage, leading to dramatically enlarged barrier height of 0.8eV. Consequently, an excellent leakage current down to $10^{-11}$ A was demonstrated. Moreover, we achieved ZnO-SBD with a rectification behavior providing high current ratio exceeding 105and a favorable ideality factor of 2.4. This achievement can be explained by the reduced series resistance of the ZnO/Au/ZnO multilayer as confirmed by electrical analysis. Therefore, the prepared ZnO-SBD based on Au intermediate layer offers enhanced electrical performance, making it markedly suitable for sensing and microelectronic applications.