A rapid evaluation method for degradation activation energy of n-GaAs ohmic contacts with and without TiN diffusion barrier layers

A rapid evaluation method, the temperature ramp method, for GaAs MESFET ohmic contacts is proposed. By use of this method, activation energy for ohmic contact degradation can be obtained using less time and a smaller number of samples than traditional methods, and the results are in agreement with those obtained by traditional methods. In accordance with some drawbacks of traditional AuGeNi-Au ohmic contacts, a new ohmic contacts system with TiN diffusion barrier layer is proposed. Experimental results show that the reliability of ohmic contacts with TiN is greatly superior to that of traditional AuGeNi-Au ohmic contacts.