Ohmic contact properties of p-type surface conductive layer on H-terminated diamond films prepared by DC arc jet CVD

With the advantages of high deposition rate and large deposition area, polycrystalline diamond films prepared by direct current (DC) arc jet chemical vapor deposition (CVD) are considered to be one of the most promising materials for high-frequency and high-power electronic devices. In this paper, high-quality self-standing polycrystalline diamond films with the diameter of 100 mm were prepared by DC arc jet CVD, and then, the p-type surface conductive layer with the sheet carrier density of 10¹¹-10¹³ cm⁻² on the H-terminated diamond film was obtained by micro-wave hydrogen plasma treatment for 40 min. Ti/Au and Au films were deposited on the H-terminated diamond surface as the ohmic contact electrode, respectively, afterwards, they were treated by rapid vacuum annealing at different temperatures. The properties of these two types of ohmic contacts were investigated by measuring the specific contact resistance using the transmission line method (TLM). Due to the formation of Ti-related carbide at high temperature, the specific contact resistance of Ti/Au contact gradually decreases to 9.95 × 10⁻⁵ Ω·cm² as the temperature increases to 820℃. However, when the annealing temperature reaches 850℃, the ohmic contact for Ti/Au is degraded significantly due to the strong diffusion and reaction between Ti and Au. As for the as-deposited Au contact, it shows an ohmic contact. After annealing treatment at 550℃, low specific contact resistance was detected for Au contact, which is derived from the enhancement of interdiffusion between Au and diamond films.