Analysis on the capacitance-voltage characteristics of metal-insulator-semiconductor capacitors based on thermally evaporated WOx on n- and p- type crystalline silicon

Tungsten oxide (WOx) thin films were deposited on n- and p-type crystalline silicon (c-Si) wafers by thermal evaporation technique at room temperature. The electrical characterization of Ag/WOx/n-Si and Ag/WOx/p-Si metal–insulator-semiconductor (MIS) capacitors were examined by the capacitance- and conductance-voltage measurements as a function of applied frequency in the 10 kHz 10 MHz range. The admittance properties of both MIS devices have been evaluated by analyzing the interfacial nature and bulk c-Si in accumulation, depletion, and inversion regimes. The capacitance responses of interface traps, bulk c-Si, depletion, and shallow states at the WOx/c-Si interface indicated the appearance of the capacitance peaks in depletion and inversion regimes for Ag/WOx/n-Si and Ag/WOx/p-Si devices. From C-V characterization, various parameters such as the depletion layer width, depletion capacitance, flat-band voltage, total charge density, and net ionized state density were calculated as a function of applied frequency. For Ag/WOx/n-Si device, the total charge density and barrier height values of 7.642 × 10−9 C and 1.119 eV at 1 MHz, respectively, were obtained. The same parameters were calculated to be 5.887 × 10−8 C and 1.107 eV for Ag/WOx/p-Si. The results demonstrated that interfacial nature of WOx film significantly governs the electronic characteristics of the c-Si based MIS devices. © 2024 Elsevier B.V.